


Tempt You Toward the Flood

by babyrubysoho



Category: Senjou no Merry Christmas | Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence | Furyo (1983)
Genre: Angst, British English, Canonical Character Death, Cultural Differences, Dreams vs. Reality, Friendship, Gen, Insanity, M/M, Military, Obsession, Prisoner of War, Psychological Warfare, Psychosis, References to Shakespeare, Sexual Tension, War Crimes, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:45:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyrubysoho/pseuds/babyrubysoho
Summary: Yonoi should have known something was wrong as soon as he laid eyes on him. When his first glimpse of the British officer revealed in himself the potential for something that felt like madness, an instant of prostrating spiritual fever. That moment of disorder should have warned him. But it passed too quickly, to be replaced by admiration, curiosity, a sense of something entirelyother. And so he failed to recognise that he was in the presence of a demon.*Yonoi tries to make sense of the magical creature that is...David Bowie XD. It doesn't go well.*





	1. Milk

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my patented 'retell great homoerotic story from one character's POV with added melodramatic antics' fics.  
> I may have stretched out the timeline by a couple of days so everyone has more time to be bloody miserable :)

Yonoi should have known something was wrong as soon as he laid eyes on him. When his first glimpse of the British officer revealed in himself the potential for something that felt like madness, an instant of prostrating spiritual fever. That moment of disorder should have warned him. But it passed too quickly, to be replaced by admiration, curiosity, a sense of something entirely _other_. And so he failed to recognise that he was in the presence of a demon.

The officers took their seats at the head of the courtroom. After his initial and unexamined reaction, Yonoi quickly relaxed into formality and let the standard words of the military prosecutor march past him. He had more education than most men of his rank, and he found the visual composition of the scene pleasing: the comforting geometry of the court and the neatness of the Japanese officers framing the elongated dishabille of the prisoner.

His first cogent thought was that the man was the most _English_ thing one could imagine: something out of those languid novelettes of Public School life that in his younger years had piqued and perplexed Yonoi’s interest in equal measure. He had never seen anyone quite so blonde, quite so… Not in the camp. Certainly not Lawrence, his window on the West, who looked like he could be from anywhere; not a distinctive thing about him but his flexibility of mind. The prisoner – Major Celliers – was at this distance all light colour, fodder for some exquisite milk-and-gold haiku. He found he could not stop staring.

The strength of his first impressions did not, however, prevent Yonoi from following the exchange between Colonel Fujimura and the foreign Major. He had been told this prisoner was ‘difficult’, and it was showing. He could see the old man was angered by Celliers’ colloquial, frustrated answers and was on the verge of losing his temper; Yonoi almost started up when the Colonel ordered Celliers’ statement of his actions stricken from the record.

Celliers was quick, despite not understanding the language. Yonoi could not see him at close range but noticed how he glanced at the scribbling clerks, once; sharply and then away, his face never still. He was unnerved by the whole proceeding, that was plain if you were watching as raptly as Yonoi; and the younger man wondered how it was that he suddenly found himself as unbalanced as the Major looked.

“May I question him?” he asked, and experienced a mild _frisson_ when he was given permission. He wanted to talk to Celliers, whose speech was off-colour, offensive, and tantalizing. He wanted to look at him.

He approached slowly, smooth paces to hide his eagerness, and almost to his surprise what came out of his mouth was Hamlet. What did that mean? Yonoi wondered even as he uttered it: a sign to this unhumbled prisoner that Yonoi was a man of the world and not to be toyed with? A reaching-out to touch this epitome of the West? Or something else? He couldn’t tell, and he did not quite like it.

Yonoi saw the Major’s head turn to look him up and down, and experienced a pang of…something. Of disquiet, as he realised that for all his fair perfection at a distance, up close Celliers’ eyes were of two completely different colours like some mongrel street cat. It was the most jarring sight. Yonoi felt his own eyes widen, and the man’s gaze snapped back to him.

Hypnotic, it was quite hypnotic, Yonoi’s stifled instincts insisted as he began to ask Celliers the pertinent questions that had not occurred to his Colonel. The Major answered him calmly, for a wonder, with concise logic to match his own. Yonoi was relieved. He accepted that the man had been acting under orders and had not gone rogue. His hindbrain was telling him something different, that in fact _rogue_ might be a very apt term for this peculiar entity; but his hindbrain was still fixated on those singular eyes and was therefore to be ignored.

The questioning continued, and Yonoi’s attention crept from the man’s eyes to his mouth, which seemed constantly on the verge of smiling for no good reason, as if it were Yonoi’s own sombre lips transposed upside down. It was by no means a happy expression, and Yonoi’s inability to parse it was bothering him. Celliers continued making it even as he described his abuse by his Japanese captors at Sukabumi.

“Can you prove that you were beaten?” demanded Yonoi, who found the idea distasteful. To his astonishment the Major did not reply or wait for permission but pulled the scarf from around his throat and began unbuttoning his uniform shirt, as unconcerned as if he were in his own house; never blinking and never looking away. Yonoi watched, mesmerised, as the bared V of skin grew wider. Then Celliers turned to display his lacerated back, the whip marks glaring and bit deep into his pale flesh.

It was obscene, thought Yonoi, and a tremor rushed through him because he felt, very deeply, that the display was just for him, to be seen by him alone. And part of him wanted to tuck that away like something precious. It was nonsense: Celliers was handsome, that was all, in a way completely alien to Yonoi’s experience, both foreign and malformed and at the same time striking enough that it cried out for poetry.

“Put on your shirt!” he cried harshly, because that last thought had been almost impassioned. Celliers did, still not batting an eye. Yonoi retreated and felt better.

 

He did not speak to Celliers again during the trial; nor after the deliberations while the Major lingered in gaol; nor before the firing squad with their loaded blanks. Not until Celliers was his. He had put forward a reasoned argument for clemency, and the officers in Batavia had been willing enough to offload their troublesome captive and send him along with Yonoi to the humid depths of the forest.

The British soldier’s fate was in his hands. And Yonoi did not even know why he had wanted him.

 

* * *

 

 

Those first days back at the camp Yonoi found himself happy and anxious by turns as he waited for the new prisoner to arrive. Happiness was not his natural state; he had never awoken with such eagerness before, never sought out the transfer truck with daily assiduity. He did not understand what it meant; but he should have known it was dangerous.

When he saw the Major on the ground beside Lawrence, both of them prostrate under the sentry’s boot, Yonoi did not lose his composure. He thrashed the stoic guard, ignoring Lawrence’s protests, and had Hara send Celliers directly to the POW hospital.

He asked Lawrence about him, later that afternoon. The Colonel had known Celliers before, fought beside him, and Yonoi wished to understand where this creature had come from before he saw him again. He found it hard to conceal his curiosity, and after a moment stopped trying; there was no particular reason why he should, and Lawrence was so open, sketching his comrade’s character as best he could. Yonoi listened, and failed to grasp what he meant. He thought it was due to the language barrier. He did not yet know that Celliers would always confound rational explanation because he was not truly human at all.

So he gave up, barked some flustered orders at Hara and Lawrence about returning the Major to health as quickly as possible – he noted their shared surprise, but why should he not take an interest? He would make him POW commander, he decided, and talk with him every day. He could easily have that Air Force buffoon Hicksley replaced: pressure him enough about the number of weapons experts among the prisoners and Hicksley would have to lie. Then Yonoi could force him to step down and put the Major in his place. It was only thanks to Yonoi’s intervention that Celliers was still alive, after all; he felt proprietary. And why not?

 

The memory of Celliers prone and motionless, his strange eyes hidden in the dirt, had troubled and excited Yonoi to such an extent that he could not eat that night. Or perhaps it was the heat. In any case, he was awake very late. He stood at the window, smoking, and all he could picture was the defiant curl of the Major’s lip at their first meeting, juxtaposed against his golden hair turned white with jungle dust.

It was no good. He had to see him again, and it could not wait. Not until tomorrow. _Now_. Yonoi pulled on his boots and cap with shaking hands. He had known alcoholics with the same unsteady limbs when they were craving their drink, and supposed this must be the same thing; although why he thought the sight of the prisoner could quench his thirst – why he should feel a thirst at all – was beyond him.

“Find me Major Celliers,” he told his aide-de-camp in a low voice, stepping almost furtively out of the moonlight and into the hospital shed. He followed his soldier and the POW medic between the sleeping wounded, and felt not one spark of interest in any of them.

“There,” said the medic, and his batman gestured with his torch. Yonoi made an impatient motion, his stomach tight with anticipation. The torch flashed a beam of light on Celliers’ form. All Yonoi could see was his face, pink and feverish and on the cusp of being woken by the sudden glare. To the Captain it looked as if the yellow light was emanating from the man rather than from the torch, and was obscurely glad he had not got any closer; even at this distance Celliers was blinding.

He could not stay, after that; did not know what his own face was doing and if it displayed the clean, sharp stab of yearning that had just skewered his chest. He reiterated his demand that the Major be cared for, stole another deep draught of Celliers’ flushed features, and retired to his room.

 

* * *

 

 

Yonoi woke the next morning with a half-forgotten song on his tongue; he was annoyed that he could not recall it, because he felt it would articulate his turbulent inner state. It was the same the day after, and the next: a stream of words that might describe perfectly his delight in the fact that Celliers was _there_ just a few walls away, and his frustration that he had had no chance to know him.

After that first night he had restrained himself from prowling around the camp as best he could. Just once or twice, when the desire to see Celliers, to puzzle him out, had been too strong. The older man had been awake the last time, and after a startled twitch of his eyebrow had shot Yonoi a smile that troubled him to his core. He’d stopped after that, and decided to make do with memory until the patient was well enough to stand the fervour of his attention.

It was almost bearable, because just imagining his prisoner was enough to send the blood rushing to the surface of Yonoi’s skin as if it were trying to exit his body and seek the man out for itself. It was a strange kind of magnetism that had no place in physics.

Such thoughts, Yonoi told himself, were not helping.

Lately Yonoi seemed infected with a lyricism that had previously only raised its head to sing its patriotic duty. He had never before found poetry in another man’s stare, the insouciant grace of his bed-bound frame or his untouchable features. He had always appreciated art, and likely that was all this was, because Celliers’ face was as arresting as a modern painting or tanka. But now, for the first time in his life, Yonoi wanted to _create_ , and he found his inability to express his intense spiritual reaction stifling. He did not understand that he did not yet know what he felt; or that part of him simply refused to recognise it.

What he knew, and could not find the words to say, was that Celliers’ eyelashes were a blonde that was almost white, and made his peculiar gaze so piercing Yonoi could see it from the other end of the hospital in the dark. That his mouth was too thin and his teeth too jagged to be beautiful, but that the sight of his subversive smile caused an ache in Yonoi’s stomach that was painful and at the same time close to ecstatic. That the memory of his voice, and the way he stood and moved and breathed, was causing Yonoi to nearly slice chunks off his unfortunate aide-de-camp in the practice hall on a daily basis in an effort to put it from his mind. The things Yonoi could not say would fill a book.

 

* * *

 

 

“I would like a report on the new patient,” Yonoi said calmly. The POW medic nodded. It had been a week since the Major had been brought in. That was plenty of time for propriety, Yonoi had decided, and had included a visit to the hospital on his way back from sword drill.

“He’s on the mend,” the medic told him. “But still rather unstable. I’d like him in bed another week.”

“What is wrong with him?” If Celliers was truly ill, Yonoi would demand an Army doctor from the city. The other man shrugged, and Yonoi narrowed his eyes. He had never been unduly concerned about how the POW hospital made out – most of them didn’t die, which was all you could expect in a tropical camp. But if the chief medic’s shrug pointed to a lackadaisical attitude towards care that included the new prisoner, Yonoi would have him out of here and back in the fields tomorrow.

“There’s no one primary cause,” the man said, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Just undue stress to the system: lack of food and water, heatstroke, privation, no rest. Then the prison conditions before he got here. The beatings,” he added, looking at Yonoi carefully.

Yonoi felt his jaw tighten as a memory rose of Celliers’ bare shoulders crisscrossed with whipstrike, and the way the Major had stared at him as he undressed – had watched him watching.

“That’s enough,” he said faintly. “If he needs extra medicine, tell Sergeant Hara.” He took a slow, calming breath. “I would like to see him.”

 

Celliers was awake, lounging in bed and gnawing on a slice of burdock root with just a thin blanket drawn up to his waist; the sides of the hospital were open to the breeze, such as it was, but the shed was still full of a languid, sticky heat. It seemed so long since Yonoi had seen his face, its tan fading away into the white of his bare arms. Yonoi felt a small eruption of panic at the sight, somewhere deep down; but that was quickly smoothed over with gratification.

“I don’t think much of this,” announced Celliers once he noticed him, waving the burdock casually. Yonoi was not surprised; the POWs complained about the Japanese rations all the time. “Are you _sure_ it’s food?”

“How do you feel?” Yonoi enquired, standing a few yards away with his hands clasped neatly behind him. Celliers gave him a quick glance, then peered up towards the roof.

“Oh, you know,” he said vaguely.

“No,” answered Yonoi, who had come here to listen as well as look. The Major’s voice was as disorienting as his eyes: English, certainly, though not as modulated as Lawrence’s or Hicksley’s and with a faint twang that could be a local accent or from somewhere much further off. Yonoi’s ear wasn’t good enough to tell. His tone was laconic and somehow compelling at the same time, although thus far Yonoi had only really heard it when Celliers was arguing for his life.

“I’m perfectly well,” Celliers told him, after a pause. That was British enough, anyway. “They’re only keeping me in bed to give the other men something to write home about.” He shot Yonoi a grin that showed his teeth, observed the Captain’s involuntary blink, and leaned back against the rough plank behind his head.

Yonoi was staring at him, wide-eyed, to make sure he did not miss anything. In his opinion Celliers did not look all that well: he could see the traces of a hectic fever receding in the man’s thin face, pain lines at the sides of his mouth and sweat dampening his untidy hair. It was a discomfiting sight, partly due to concern for his health and partly – though Yonoi did not realise this until much later – because the elements of the scene could be interpreted as alarmingly erotic. The bed, the damp and flushed fair skin, the mussed state of his barley-bright hair. And the smile that kicked Yonoi even further off balance; it was still playing around the edges of Celliers’ lips, and he could not grasp what it meant. All he knew was that he needed to sit down. He took a seat on the bench a little way from the bed, the fabric of his hakama falling in orderly lines, and waited for his composure to return.

Celliers did not seem worried by the silence. He tucked his long arms behind his head and observed Yonoi out of his left eye – the darker one, Yonoi thought, almost green with the pupil blown wide at its centre. Celliers’ stare ran up his body, taking in his practice clothes, then fell curiously on the sword leaning against the bench before returning to his face. The Major’s gaze was not helping his equilibrium.

“I expect you’re waiting for a thank-you.” Yonoi started as Celliers’ voice intruded on his thoughts. He looked up and the prisoner cracked another untranslatable smile.

“What?”

“For getting me shot with blanks and not bullets.”

“What?” repeated Yonoi, as if he could no longer speak English.

“That was a fun trick, I’d not seen that one before.” Celliers smirked briefly, eyebrows furrowed. “And now here we are.” The Captain stared at him dumbly. “Oh, it’s a distinct improvement,” Celliers assured him airily, and Yonoi could not tell if his tone was bitter or ironic or actually grateful. He half wished he had just continued to spy on the man while he was sleeping and not tried to engage him at all. But as much as it shook him, he found himself basking in Celliers’ voice and the gaze of his mis-bred eyes.

“What are you trying to say?” he demanded at last. Celliers shrugged.

“Thank you, Captain Yonoi.” The sound of his name issuing from that perplexing mouth caused Yonoi to inhale sharply. Celliers made a mildly pleased noise and turned back to look at the ceiling, breaking the connection that had suddenly felt so intimate. Yonoi was disappointed, but relieved. He had probably stayed longer than was good for him anyway, and he did not want his batman to come looking.

“Stay in bed,” he said solemnly, getting to his feet. The sword in his hand felt comforting. “Regain your strength. I have a position for you.”

“Lucky me,” said Celliers, and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

It was Lawrence who put a stop to the morning sword drills. Yonoi wondered, after, if Lawrence had known exactly what to ask to make him agree, and what that amiable Englishman thought of his pressing concern for this one patient. Maybe Lawrence would use the knowledge maliciously, and maybe he wouldn’t. Yonoi cared deeply about appearances, but not enough to prevent a solicitous stab of guilt when Lawrence admitted that the Captain’s shouts were making the weakened Celliers anxious.

“I do not want the prisoners to become upset,” Yonoi said evasively, and steered the conversation into another channel. Lawrence followed his cue with his usual sensitivity. You knew where you were with Lawrence: it was like conversing with a Japanese person who had spent a lifetime abroad. Perhaps that explained the absence of any fascination like the kind Yonoi experienced for Celliers.

Even as they spoke Yonoi was beginning to regret giving up his practice sessions quite so easily. There was something cleansing and cathartic in the ritualised violence, in the clash of swords with a strong opponent. He had always excelled in the art, and enjoyed it insofar as he enjoyed anything. But he could date his current passion for it from the day Celliers had been confined to the hospital, leaving Yonoi to stew in the dual fevers of the desire to speak with him and anxiety over why he needed to so badly. With every permitted shout he could voice those feelings that were too raw to shape into thought. And he had just voluntarily cut himself off.

Perhaps it was anger at himself that prompted Yonoi to order the long-delayed execution for the next day. But it was surely desperation that made him demand the Major’s attendance.

 

* * *

 

 

 “I’ve ordered them all to undergo _gy_ _ō_ ,” Yonoi snapped at Hara. “Me, too.” Hara did not exactly sigh at the reminder, but set the rice balls down in what seemed a long-suffering way. Yonoi didn’t care. He was too shaken to care.

He should have known it was a mistake to forego the sword drills: the _seppuku_ had been a shambles, and it was entirely because of Yonoi’s anger. He knew exactly where it had come from, the searing pit in his gut that had somehow been transmuted overnight from a yearning for Celliers’ presence to thwarted fury that it was being kept from him. He could not say any of this aloud – he could barely think it – and instead had exploded at Hicksley. In that moment he had been out of control in a way he never had before, and it frightened him.

The decision to order two days’ fasting and contemplation had come to him in the nick of time, from that steadfast centre of spirit that Yonoi truly believed was the soul of the Japanese, and which remained pure and dutiful within the emotional tempest he was enduring. It would restore the balance in the camp, Yonoi was sure of it – if the Europeans would just try to comprehend it. Then he could get on with his life; and at last come to understand Jack Celliers’ part in it.


	2. Hibiscus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone behaves like a total drama queen, and Yonoi has an unpleasant but sexy revelation :)

A day; those barbarians had only lasted a _day_ , snarled Yonoi to himself as he stripped off his traditional clothing and struggled into his uniform. It was Hara who had interrupted his meditation as the sun began to sink behind the treeline, to inform him that the prisoners were breaking the _gy_ _ō_ : eating manju and singing rebellious English songs. The Sergeant did not sound surprised. Yonoi should not have been, either, but he was bitterly disappointed; and, if he were honest, a little afraid.

His anger turned to absolute leaping terror as he stepped hurriedly out of the Jeep and was confronted by the sight of Celliers below him, being held captive by two guards at the mouth of the hospital. Celliers, who had done nothing but lie on his back and meekly convalesce since the day he got here. The Major was not struggling, but every line of his slim frame was trembling with a cresting wave of energy; Yonoi thought that if he touched him now it would burn worse than an electric shock.

The tableau was so strange, so outlandish, that for a moment Yonoi seemed to have stepped from the truck into a twisted parallel of his smooth-running world: the hospital ablaze in the humid dark and spilling over with song – he knew damn well it was no innocent melody, he knew defiance when he heard it – and all of it a backdrop to Celliers, who was standing before him holding up a blood-red hibiscus as if it was a religious offering.

For the first time ever the sight of him brought Yonoi no joy, just a deep shudder. With a spark of insight he understood – or thought he understood – what had made his emotions for this prisoner so confused: it was chaos. In that moment Celliers seemed like disorder embodied: long limbs held up at awkward, insectile angles by the guards, his impossible eyes an affront to normality as they stared Yonoi down, and his teeth bared in a smile that was madder and more consuming than fire.

Celliers had started this anarchy. Yonoi knew it as certainly as he knew his own name; and, what was more, Celliers _wanted_ him to know it. Yonoi finally understood why his superiors had recommended the death penalty. The Major was not ‘difficult’, or ill, or an enemy officer testing his captors. He was chaos.

“…Who do you think you are?” asked Yonoi at last in a hushed murmur, as if no-one else in this scene existed but himself and Celliers. He was overcome with an inexplicable misery that almost eclipsed his anger, and had to physically force himself to stay upright. And then, quite unprompted by his brain and in a shaking voice he added,

“Are you an evil spirit?”

The Major stared at Yonoi as if _he_ was the one who was mad; but now Yonoi had voiced the question he was sure it was the only one that mattered. Something deep in his soul had made him say it. As if to confirm it Celliers smiled even wider, his beautiful face illuminated terribly.

“Yes,” he answered, not letting Yonoi look away for an instant. “One of _yours_ , I hope.”

He ate the flower.

As he watched those jagged teeth tear at the red flesh of the plant, Yonoi realised that this might not be hyperbole; that Celliers might truly not be human. And he realised something else, something that brought back the fear so fast it knocked the breath from him: that the Major’s hope was his hope too. That, agitator or lunatic or devil, he wanted Celliers to be his.

 

After that it was all Yonoi could do not to flee the hospital and Celliers’ infectious presence. It made the discovery of the radio and Lawrence’s insubordination seem almost nothing in comparison. He kept his poised stance, all the same, and had everyone locked up who ought to be – it seemed his only defence right now against the delirium his captive’s proximity promised.

It was clear to him that Celliers could not remain at large. He was too dangerous. He needed to be caged, and far more securely, though Yonoi did not probe too deeply into what he would do once he was. And Lawrence could damn well join him. For not warning Yonoi about what kind of creature he had in his hands.

 

* * *

 

 

Two days passed, and Yonoi could not decide if Celliers was a devil or merely a madman. Lawrence insisted fervently that the _man_ was just that, but Lawrence had proved he could not be trusted. There was too much unfamiliar in that thin, expressive face, no matter how he watched it – and he did watch, closer than ever, now that he had Celliers trapped. The Major was hardly stoic, but his mobile features spoke an impenetrable foreign language that Yonoi did not have the tools to decode. It scared him now as much as it had drawn him before. It scared him rigid. So why did the daily prospect of laying eyes on him still create this yearning? If that didn’t say ‘demon’, he couldn’t think what did.

Lawrence understood Celliers, Yonoi supposed. The thought did not give him any pleasure, but there it was: they shared a world he could never inhabit, and nor would he want to. That was what he was currently telling himself, as he observed the two British officers from his position in the prison doorway. They were talking across the empty cells between them, and the Major at least was aware Yonoi was there.

“They’re behaving themselves now, anyway,” remarked Hara from behind him, in one of his frequent drops into familiarity. Yonoi ignored it; it was inevitable, the state they were all in.

“They laugh too much,” he said shortly. And that was true, too, for men in their precarious and quite shameful position. What did it mean? wondered Yonoi, who had seldom felt the urge to smile since attaining manhood and less still since the upheaval of orderly life that was Celliers. The laughter between the two men meant secrets, and secrets not in plain English – Yonoi could understand their words perfectly well – but in their Western _otherness_ , the meaning embedded in the curve of their mouths and inaccessible to him. It distressed him, and he thought with a shock that he might hate Lawrence. And that was Celliers’ fault too.

“Move Lawrence outside,” Yonoi told his subordinate, who was staring at his furrowed brows benignly. “Find out if it was his radio.” He did not want Celliers talking to anyone: he was a contaminant.

Hara gave that irritating twitch-and-grin of his, and marched off to relay the order. Celliers stopped talking then, and looked right at him. Yonoi felt it again, the mental lurch as that mismatched gaze met his own: ten yards away and it could still pin him like a butterfly to a card. Celliers held him there for a long moment, then hitched one corner of his mouth up in a lopsided smile, too far away for Yonoi to see his sharp teeth. He shot the young Captain a salute that Yonoi pessimistically – and correctly – interpreted as mocking, and his smile widened beautifully. Yonoi shuddered, and shut the door on him.

 

* * *

 

 

“The foreign medic says the Major isn’t well enough to stand the prison block this long,” Hara reported the following afternoon. He made no mention of Lawrence, who was tied up in an outbuilding and being ignored until he was ready to answer the Sergeant’s questions; Yonoi was determined to have at least one rebellion in this shambles of a camp conclude in a tidy manner. The Captain pursed his lips crossly.

“If the Major is well enough to upset the entire hospital, he’s well enough for a gaol cell.” Hara shrugged at that, having no personal investment in this particular prisoner.

Later, though, Yonoi felt guilty. He sent for his aide-de-camp and restated the order that Celliers was to be fed and left unharmed. That night he lay in the relative luxury of his futon and pictured the hard, packed soil and shale of the cell floors. He thought about Celliers, who was certainly possessed of a fund of deceptive energy, but whose limbs had become so thin during his illness there must be almost no cushion between the dirt and his elegant bones.

It frightened him that he still felt so solicitous towards the source of all his disorder. He half suspected that Celliers had the power to influence him even from this far away; that despite being the one in a cell the Major somehow had him trapped. Yonoi recalled the sight of Celliers’ bared teeth sinking into the petals of the hibiscus, and felt a spiritual affinity with that flower.

Even now he could not resist framing Celliers in poetry.

Yonoi went to sleep afraid. Then he woke up, dressed himself tidily, and ordered the fine Persian rug in the camp commander’s office rolled up and delivered to the prison. He noted the uncertain glances of his soldiers and stared them down. He felt better.

 

When the huge jungle moon was at its height Yonoi left his quarters and went on a solitary patrol. He had sometimes done so in the past – which now meant the whole history of time before Celliers’ arrival. He liked to be alone, though he had never considered himself lonely, and patrol was a useful way to be pensive. So the night sentry at the prison was not unduly surprised when his Captain melted out of the shadows and requested the keys.

Yonoi’s hands were steady as he unlocked the outer door, but only thanks to his concentrated force of will. He shut it behind him, sinking him into almost-darkness. Now here he was, for the first time ever, alone with his prisoner.

He walked along the cells silently; if Celliers was asleep he would not wake him yet. Yonoi did not know why he had come – he had fought with himself all day, and lost – but as he reached the wire door that was keeping the Major shut in, he understood he had had no choice.

He was not asleep. He was lying on his stomach on the rug, which looked as out of place on the dirt floor as Celliers did. Yonoi could hear him humming quietly to himself, but did not know the tune. The Major did not react or appear to notice him, so Yonoi of course took the opportunity to watch him. Even without a glimpse of his face he was a most mesmerizing creature: the sound of his voice, the line of his back. Yonoi spent over a minute enduring an ache of pleasure, coupled with one of regret that Celliers would never be the ideal he had imagined him to be.

“You might say hello,” came a drawling voice, jarring him out of his reverie. Yonoi grit his teeth and folded his arms to make it seem like he had not physically jumped at the sound.

Celliers turned over and leant up on his elbow, face cradled in his palm. It was just light enough to see his eyes, but Yonoi made no attempt to meet them.

“Thanks for the rug.” The Major ran his slim fingers over its nap and smoothed out its silken fringe. “It’ll be in a bit of a state by the time I’m done with it, mind you.”

“You are welcome,” said Yonoi, who couldn’t think of anything more eloquent. He never felt this way when he spoke with Lawrence, as though he was a stuttering novice at English whose words became tangled in his head when he tried to utter them. But Celliers’ idiomatic fluency seemed designed to mock him. Even in language he had Yonoi coming and going.

His captive had been watching him lazily, making no attempt to salute or even sit up straight. Now the Major leaned forward.

“It’s very comfortable,” said Celliers with one of his twisted smiles, patting the rug. He looked up at Yonoi through the wire. “Care to try it?”

The question seemed to set a fire that ran its way through Yonoi’s body and set his skin alight. Even the Major must have been able to feel its heat, because all at once he stopped smiling and closed his eyes, those fair lashes gleaming in the dark. Yonoi shook his head mutely, but Celliers seemed to see it anyway and know it was a lie.

“That’s what I thought,” he said in an odd voice. “Well, you can come a bit closer, can’t you? It’s nice to see a human face every once in a while.”

“Human,” parroted Yonoi huskily, and he stepped forward and crouched down by the wire as if hypnotised. The pure, upright part of his soul was signalling danger, but it was nothing compared to Celliers’ allure. “What would you know about that?”

Celliers paused, then laughed at him, but it was a laugh so intimate it felt like a deliberate caress. It made Yonoi’s hands shake, and he curled them into the wire to stop them.

“If I’m a demon,” the Major said in a conversational tone, “then whence comes the urge to send me a nice comfy carpet?”

“What?” asked Yonoi, not quite following because he was still lightheaded from Celliers’ earlier proposition – if that was what it had been. He was sure that Celliers dropped colloquialisms into his speech to keep him off-balance.

“Why did you give me this?” Celliers flopped onto his back on the rug. “I bet poor Lawrence doesn’t get one.”

“I do not want you to be uncomfortable,” Yonoi explained. It made him feel bashful to say it.

“How noble.” Yonoi was not good at interpreting Celliers’ tone, but that had been a definite sneer.

“…Good night,” he said stiffly, and braced himself to rise. He did not have to endure this.

“Wait!” Celliers sat up. “Don’t go yet, I’m not tired.” And Yonoi’s eyes were evidently so hungry for the sight of him they overrode his good sense; he knelt back down. The Major graced him with such a smile that he appeared to glow with its radiance. Yonoi swallowed.

“What do you want?” Celliers made a low, contemplative sound, then grinned wider.

“Let’s talk about Hamlet.”

 

In the early hours of that morning Yonoi dreamed of him. It was hardly the first time – admiration for, and now fear of, his captive had plagued the Captain’s sleep for many nights. But the Persian rug – that infatuated gift – had triggered something worse, and suddenly all the past weeks’ poetry made a terrible sense: Yonoi realised as he snapped out of sleep that he _wanted_ Celliers. He desired him with a vast ferocity that was matched only by his terror, and Celliers was haunting his dreams to tell him so.

Yonoi awoke struggling for air, threw off his covers and was immediately sick outside. He could not remember what he had seen in his dream, what he had done; only the passionate sense of wanting, and a pleasure so muddled his body was still ringing with it.

He lay awake, and knew that Celliers had brought this upon him. He knew that if he saw his prisoner again in the flesh – his skin tingled at the word – he would remember what he had dreamed. And he knew that it was not enough to stop him going.

 

* * *

 

 

Yonoi visited Celliers the next night, and the next. He could not help himself. The guard became accustomed to his patrols inside the prison, which lasted longer and longer each time. It was as if he himself was the spirit, drawn irresistibly by Celliers’ witchcraft. Every time he laid eyes on the Major’s illogical beauty he felt himself disintegrate a little more. He was becoming absentminded during the day, and could not seem to keep his temper around the POW soldiers. It was as if some part of him blamed them for not containing the pandemonium that was Celliers, blamed the whole damned British Empire for hatching him. He could sense the mood of the camp, and it made him even angrier. His subordinates were worried about him; he could hardly confess that his desire for Celliers’ presence was unstoppable, even if every word they spoke together only corrupted him further.

He knew perfectly well it was a seduction: there was far too much pleasure in Celliers’ words.

 

That night Yonoi began as he usually did. First the half-legitimate interrogation; he thought vaguely that if he knew more about the Major, he might gain some power over him. It never lasted long, Celliers was too obtuse, always managing to twist the conversation into something bewildering or suggestive or horrifying. And in truth, the whole charade was just an excuse for Yonoi to be with him.

“Why did you refuse to tell the court your history?” asked Yonoi after a few false starts, half wanting to know everything about Celliers and half suspecting that he had no history at all but had conjured himself out of the air for the sole purpose of torturing him.

“Why don’t you tell me yours?” Celliers rolled over to look at him.

“My past is my business,” he snapped, stubbornly avoiding those eyes as he always tried to do. He heard Celliers laugh.

“That’s just what I said.” What man _laughed_ at a time like this? Every smile Celliers bestowed fed Yonoi’s suspicions. “Funny,” continued Celliers. “Me in here and you out there, and we’re just alike.”

“That is a _lie_ ,” replied the Captain furiously, taking care to enunciate the last word because he knew it was a word that offended the British. But it just made Celliers laugh again, and this time Yonoi had to look. As soon as their eyes met he was caught. Oh, there was still such euphoria in looking, delight and dismay in equal measure, and Celliers was surely aware of it. Yonoi’s early image of his prisoner as the quintessential Englishman had turned itself on its head since Yonoi had seen him devour that flower. Now Celliers’ warped beauty seemed further proof that he was inhuman: as though a Christian angel had mated with a demon and spawned something malicious and madly lovely.

“ _Is_ it.” The Major’s gaze moved down his body. Yonoi’s throat went dry. “Seems we’re on the same ladder, you and I. In all sorts of ways.”

“…I do not understand what you mean,” said Yonoi in a hoarse whisper.

“Oh? You’re here, aren’t you?” Celliers stood up and took a step towards the wire door. Yonoi started to retreat, but the Major advanced another step and he stopped. He was petrified, and never more grateful for the barrier between them. Celliers folded his arms and did not attempt to reach through the wire. He did not have to: Yonoi could no more have moved away than a rabbit can escape a snare.

“You come here, and you stare at me, you interrogate me and then give me presents,” Celliers said quietly, his tall, too-thin frame a foot away from Yonoi’s balled fists. Close enough to touch if he wanted. “If the Geneva Convention meant anything in this hellhole I could have you up for cruel and unusual punishment.”

“ _Punishment?_ ” Yonoi managed.

“Yes,” replied Celliers, his voice growing softer and somewhat vicious. “I don’t know what to think of you. I don’t know what to expect. It’s very wearing on the nerves, you know.”

“I _do_ know.” Yonoi said it before he could help himself; he bit his lip, and Celliers’ odd eyes dropped to it.

“Will you tell me why you’re keeping me here all by myself?” Celliers asked, his gaze not moving from Yonoi’s mouth. “Or shall I guess? Or shall I _show_ you?”

Yonoi was immediately hit with an image he had seen too many times in his dreams, of Celliers in the courtroom, shirt pushed off his shoulders to display the stripes on his back. In these dreams – which had begun to bleed into waking fantasies that he could only suppress by taking it out on everyone around him – they were no longer in the court but somewhere else, a place where all the light was drawn to Celliers; where they were alone together with nothing but air between Celliers’ skin and his touch.

Having that memory surface now, with the subject of it right in front of him, was too much. Yonoi panicked, and was at last able to move. Without pausing to let that hypnotic tongue speak another syllable, he rushed from the prison building and slammed the metal door behind him. He could feel the perspiration beading on his forehead, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

The sentry was looking at him oddly.

“Everything is in order,” Yonoi threw over his shoulder as he strode off.

It was the worst lie he had ever told.

 

* * *

 

 

If only he had had more courage, thought Yonoi wildly, as he faced off against his demon in the starry clearing. If only he had been more rash. If he had, he would not have foregone his nightly visit to the prison, and this would never have happened.

Yonoi had been restless tonight, too afraid of what his dreams would show him to stay in bed but too wary to get anywhere near the prison block. He had gone on a lonely walk instead, trying to clear his spiritual centre of the cords that were tangling around it. It must have been fate that put him and not the regular patrol in this exact spot at this exact time. Fate or Celliers, which lately seemed to amount to the same thing.

He had come round a bend in the path, attempting to think of anything but, and had walked straight into them: Celliers free and unleashed with Lawrence giggling deliriously in his arms. In his left hand he held a long Japanese knife and Yonoi’s rug. Seeing it, Yonoi experienced a wave of such thorough unhappiness he almost forgot to be scared. When he began to draw his sword it was reflex, nothing more.

“I presume…you’ve come for your carpet,” said Celliers breathlessly, and grinned in the maddest way. He dropped Lawrence and the rug, and then that wicked knife was pointing in Yonoi’s direction; astonished, the Captain recognised it as belonging to his aide-de-camp. Had Celliers corrupted him too? He felt a stab of jealousy, and it was that more than anything that made him finally unsheathe his katana.

The blade was shaking; _he_ was shaking, and Celliers was watching him, crouched over spiderlike and grinning even wider as he gulped down air. One of his eyes looked completely black, the other the same colourless shade as the moon. Yonoi waited for him to move. Celliers was waiting, too.

The Major inhaled on a laugh and thrust the knife blade-down into the sand by his side, letting go. And then, _then_ Yonoi felt the fear. Celliers remained bent down, hands on his knees like an animal ready to spring, and looked at him.

“Why do you not fight me?!” cried Yonoi, agonised, willing Celliers to move, to run, to strike him through the heart if that was what it took. Anything would be better than this. “If you defeat me, you will be free!”

Celliers still did not move. But he smiled, and Yonoi was frozen in place by the sweet lunacy of it, of all of it. He wondered how he could have ever thought this creature was human, and he felt something break open in his chest: that precious first glimpse of the English soldier in the courtroom, the image he had kept tucked away and protected in the faint hope it might have been real.

Of course Celliers would not leave him. Not until he had demolished him; perhaps not even then.

He should have ended it right there. He should have at least tried. But without even willing his arm to move it was lowering to his side, and he knew he could no more kill Celliers than he could stop himself breathing. And so they stood there, both of them, a still tableau with Lawrence lying somewhere between them.

The next thing he was aware of was Hara’s voice behind him.

“I’ll shoot him,” said the Sergeant matter-of-factly. Yonoi turned his head leisurely, like this was all a dream, and there was Hara with his pistol ready, his troop behind him. If Yonoi had been at all capable of salvation he would have felt relief, then. He would have allowed Hara to do his duty.

Instead he moved to face his subordinate, putting his body between the gun and Celliers, who was still crouched there watching. He could not let it happen; the spirit had its teeth in him deep. Hara lowered his pistol without apparent surprise, narrow eyes flicking once to the British officers behind Yonoi.

Lawrence said something too idiomatic to catch; he sounded drunk, and he was still laughing. Celliers again: he would infect every one of them and Yonoi could do nothing. When he looked back the Major had finally moved in response to Lawrence’s voice, slumped over his comrade’s prone body and face buried in his shoulder. Perhaps Yonoi was wrong: perhaps Celliers _was_ human. But he was human for Lawrence; never for _him_. Ahh, that was a painful thought. Yonoi felt the knotted strings contract around his heart, tight enough to weep.

“Take them back to their cells,” he ordered, before any display of the kind could threaten.

Hara marched them off, not at all gently but with the democratic brutality he dished out to everyone. That left Yonoi to pull himself together and find out how this had happened.

It wasn’t difficult. His batman confessed as soon as they found him, eager to take responsibility if it had meant a chance of dispatching the evil spirit from his Captain’s side. Yonoi supposed he felt gratified that the man saw what he could see in Celliers, that Yonoi was not simply going mad all by himself. And now he would be executed, for attempted murder of both the prison guard and the prisoner. It was a tragedy, really; his aide-de-camp was the only person acting with good sense in the whole place, and this was his reward.

Still, Yonoi found that in the moment he did not much care. He stood as the man’s second, waiting there with his sword unsheathed again, and as it transpired he had no difficulty whatsoever in killing a person. The only one he could not was the one who mattered.


	3. Wire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a very roundabout way, Yonoi gets some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should mention here that this fic deals with "insanity" in a completely subjective way from one character's point of view: a superstitious 1940s man who can only frame what's happening to him in terms of madness but probably doesn't know anything about mental illness. So, what I suppose I'm trying to say is that this is not meant to be an accurate or sensitive portrayal of mental illness in the real world!

“Unlock the door,” ordered Yonoi to the double guard at the prison. He saw the way they looked at each other. But his sword was only just dry from executing one man, and they let him in and shut the door behind him without comment.

“Captain,” came his devil’s sweet voice from the depths of the building as soon as he entered. Yonoi strode down the walkway and found Celliers by his cell door, waiting for him. “I thought you’d come,” said the Major. Yonoi saw him wince as he took a breath, and surmised with a possessive kind of fury that Hara’s squad had given him a kicking on the way here. “Glutton for punishment, aren’t you. Not that I can talk.”

“You know I do not understand when you speak like that.” Yonoi stood as far from the cell as possible, the corrugated metal of the wall cool at his back.

“Yes, I know.” Celliers shrugged, and pulled a pained face. “But you understand this, don’t you: _damn you_.”

“I just spared your life,” said Yonoi miserably. “Twice.”

“You blocked my way,” Celliers corrected him. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be gone.”

“You could have escaped me at any time tonight,” countered Yonoi in a low voice. “You could have killed me. You know it is true!”

“No I couldn’t,” said Celliers grimly. Yonoi could not guess what he meant by that; surely if Celliers stayed it was by his own volition. “…Why did you come here, now, of all times?” the Major added, after a pause in which his voice became more measured.

“To see you,” Yonoi replied immediately. It was useless to pretend anything else. “Surely you know that.” Celliers eyed him for a minute, lolling tiredly against the doorframe.

“Then can I ask you something?”

“Ask.”

“Let me go back to the hospital.” Yonoi looked at him incredulously. Celliers ran a hand distractedly through his hair, pausing to prod at a sore spot. “Or on the work detail, or anything.” He stood up straight, his long arms framing the door as he leaned forward. “Anything to keep me from really going mad.”

For the first time in their acquaintance Yonoi wanted to laugh, though as it turned out he physically could not. Madness! Madness was the least of Celliers’ problems; it was but a minor manifestation of his chaos. If the Major had been simply mad he would not have this unbreakable hold on Yonoi. Or, if he did, Yonoi could send him somewhere to be cared for properly. But he was no madman, no sort of man at all. That had become clear to the Captain tonight.

“I can never let you out,” Yonoi explained hopelessly. “You’re too dangerous.” Celliers raised both hands and scrubbed at his face, concealing a quiet moan of laughter or frustration.

“I’m only dangerous because of _you_.”

“I know,” said Yonoi, who was now nearly convinced that Celliers existed entirely for him. There was a silence.

“…Come here,” Celliers ordered at last, and Yonoi went. His prisoner was standing with his forehead against the wire, trembling hands now threaded through it to keep himself upright. This close his exhaustion was palpable and quite human, but Yonoi knew better.

“What do you want?” he asked in a ragged whisper. He had to look up to meet the Major’s eyes – he knew there was no longer any point in resisting them. Celliers shook the wire viciously, the rattling door almost striking Yonoi’s hip, he was so close.

“I want you to touch me.” Celliers’ fingers tightened hard on the wire; he was not blinking, his eyes wide and unbalanced though his voice came in that soft drawl that Yonoi had once loved to hear. Now the younger man could not have been more afraid if Celliers had announced he was going to eat his soul.

“I can’t!” he exclaimed, appalled at the idea though he had dreamed of it a dozen times. He found himself physically shaking his head in denial. His captive shook the door again.

“You have to.” Celliers took an unsteady breath through bared teeth, and for a second his stare looked pleading.

“ _Why?_ ” Yonoi could not move backwards; if anything he had leaned closer, and now the barrier separating them seemed so thin, as though Celliers was willing away its solidity.

“To prove that I’m like you. Flesh of my flesh,” said Celliers, smiling bitterly at a reference Yonoi did not understand. He unwrapped his left hand from the wire, his long fingers reaching through in an unmistakable appeal for connection. It was a trick, Yonoi was certain of it: if a spirit could hold such sway over a man with its eyes and its voice, what power would it have if he touched it? Celliers’ fingers were slim and shaking, marked by the sharp metal. They were as beautiful as the rest of him. “There’s nobody here,” the Major told him. “No-one to know.” He turned his palm up, and beckoned, still smiling. “But _you_ need to know.”

Yonoi set his jaw; he knew what was going to happen. Because he was already lost. He had been since the second his sword had refused to end this nightmare. Slowly, not looking at what he was doing, he lifted his hand. Celliers’ gaze held him secure in its grip; it was almost a comfort. He stopped breathing as the tips of his fingers brushed Celliers’ knuckles, slipped their way across the back of his hand and traced along his thumb.

“See?” murmured Celliers, above him. Yonoi did not see, but he could feel, and his own fingers were shaking. The Major _felt_ like a man, hard where there should be bone and soft where there should be flesh. His skin was hot like he was running another fever, and trembled, with anxiety, perhaps. Yonoi knew very well why his own hand was quivering, and it was nothing so simple.

“What does it prove?” demanded Yonoi, not breaking the contact. He swallowed. “Even if you are human; you injured a soldier, and you tried to escape me. How can I let you go back to the others?”

All of a sudden his hand was caught in a biting grip. Celliers squeezed it until Yonoi’s tendons creaked.

“Then kill me,” the Major spat. “Why not? I’d actually like to know.”

“ _Because_ ,” hissed Yonoi, and stopped. Celliers looked at him for a long time, perhaps the longest he had ever endured. At last his fair eyebrows evened out and he let out a deep, forbearing sigh. Yonoi watched him lift their closed fists, watched Celliers’ face as he lowered it towards the wire. Celliers bent his head over his captor’s hand, and paused. Yonoi was absolutely sure he was about to be kissed, in some warped ritual of Western chivalry; but in the end the Major just breathed.

“It’s all right,” said Celliers, and let go abruptly. He released his hold on the door and sat down with a thud, worn out. He raised his unsteady hand in the same gesture as before. “I’ll get you yet, Captain Yonoi.”

“Only if I let you out,” Yonoi reminded him in a choked voice. Celliers gave him one acceding nod, then put his golden head back and laughed and laughed.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Don’t sleep_ , Yonoi told himself, when at last he retired to his quarters. He was sure he would not anyway: the prospect was terrifying. He lay straight and symmetrical in his futon, covered against the night breeze that found its dusky way between the wooden doors. In an effort to keep his thoughts in their proper channel he tried to picture his batman, who had sacrificed everything in an effort to keep him safe. It was noble; it was the martial purity that he and the aide-de-camp had honed for years in the practice halls and schoolrooms of their youth and in the abandoned Christian church of the camp. Yonoi should shed tears for him, but even in that his senses would not come to order. What made his lips clamp shut against weeping was the image of Celliers in the moonlight.

He fell asleep on that thought, his soul filled to bursting with it. And this time, as if that one touch of the Major’s hand was the catalyst for a heightened state of consciousness, he remembered everything he dreamed.

His batman was nowhere. Lawrence was nowhere. All that existed was himself and Celliers. They were outside again, the ground painted silver. Only this time the Major was not coming at him with a knife; just his own self. It was easily as frightening. He was neatly dressed for once, uniform hat and all, the brow shadowing his features.

Yonoi waited as he came, filled with an acute desire to see his prisoner’s face. It was perhaps the least complicated emotion he had ever felt for him, and when Celliers tugged the hat off his head Yonoi heard himself sigh with admiration. He looked utterly perfect; just as he had the first time Yonoi had seen him. Celliers looked at him solemnly.

“Now?” he said, in that caressing drawl. Yonoi thought he could watch him forever. He did not move.

Celliers exhaled in what might be amusement and stepped forward a pace, pushing a hand through his yellow hair that was bleached to ivory in the moonlight. The gesture left it out of place, no longer lying neatly but standing up in disarray, the way it had really been that night. Yonoi felt a vague perturbation dart through him.

“Now?” murmured Celliers again. Yonoi’s breath was coming faster. The Major pulled the scarf from around his throat and let it fall in a heap on the dry grass. Yonoi noticed with an inflated sense of discomfort that his shirt was buttoned crooked; he licked his lips nervously.

Celliers took a leisurely step forward and asked him again, and this time when he moved it was into a bright patch of light. He was close enough now that the younger man could see every aspect of his flawed eyes, which looked down at him and caught him: one a pool of black ink and the other gleaming mercury. Yonoi took a breath so sharp it was a gasp. Fear clutched at him, and yet he did not want to look away.

“Now?” Celliers demanded softly, his strange accent suddenly jarring to the ears. The next step brought him within a yard of the petrified Captain. Then he leaned forward and _smiled_ , that mad, spectacular smile, and it was enough to ensure Yonoi’s dissolution was complete. Yonoi wanted to scream, wanted to obliterate Celliers’ grin, wanted to touch him as he had touched him in the prison cell tonight.

Instead he shoved him, with his full strength and yanking back his hands as if Celliers were red hot. Celliers fell against a tree, leaned back along its trunk and began to laugh helplessly. Yonoi wanted him so badly he could hardly breathe: to touch his hand, his face, the softness of his hair. That was all. And this was _his_ dream, wasn’t it?

Yonoi stepped forward. Celliers was still laughing, and that was awful because it bared his teeth; once more Yonoi was brought to mind of that lush hibiscus and how it had been devoured, and was filled with a complicated panic at the thought of it happening to him. Nevertheless, he reached out. His whole arm was quivering, and before he could brush the edge of the Major’s collar it dropped to his side without strength; his own limbs would not obey him.

The younger man began to tremble as Celliers stopped laughing and in an instant was standing at his full height.

“Now?” asked Celliers, very gently. Yonoi was horrified at how inevitable it all seemed; even in his dreams he had no agency in the face of Celliers’ destructive magnetism. So he nodded. Celliers took his hand and lifted it to his lips, not letting him drop his gaze. Yonoi watched him, eyes huge, as his demon’s smile vanished against Yonoi’s skin. The touch made him shudder, and when Celliers’ long fingers moved to brush the bone beneath his eye and cup his cheek he had to stifle a moan.

It was joy in a way Yonoi had never imagined it, and with every touch he abandoned more of himself, more of his essential makeup, feeling it fly apart under the febrile warmth of Celliers’ hands. He did not try to prevent it but leaned in solemnly, not protesting even when Celliers pushed his head back to press their lips together in the first Western kiss Yonoi had experienced. That took more of him than any caress so far, and as he breathed deep in desperation he found he was breathing Celliers’ turmoil into himself so that he did not know where his spirit ended and the spirit that was Celliers began. He knew that at any moment the demon could bite down and take it all.

He had to move then, and reached up to grip the Major tight to prevent himself from falling.

“The same ladder,” whispered Celliers in his usual cryptic fashion, his face too close to make sense of it when Yonoi tried to look. He made a soft, melodic sound that flooded Yonoi with heat. Then he tugged him down into the dirt.

After that all sense disintegrated. All Yonoi could see was fractured glimpses of Celliers above him, the moon a corona around his beautiful head, the Major’s skin the colour of bone and his limbs smooth as he took Yonoi in his arms and consumed him. He could hear his own ecstatic breathing, and the sound of insects. What he felt could not be captured in anything so orderly as language.

He dreamt it again. And again.

In his dreams Celliers destroyed him so sweetly Yonoi barely felt the pain of it. And when at last he awoke he was not at all certain that he had, because the pleasure was still there. He opened his eyes. He looked out at the prosaic tropical sunlight and the sentry who had been sent to wake him standing smartly at the door, and put his head in his hands.

 

* * *

 

 

Yonoi was up and dressed, but that was as far as he had got. He felt shaky and weak, his skin too thin and suffused with the same fever that had struck Celliers when he arrived, as though the Major had physically found his way inside Yonoi and set up camp there. It might have been transmitted through their hands, the one point where their skin had actually connected. But to the lightheaded Captain it seemed a deeper infection, one that must have come out of his dreams.

“No food,” Yonoi said quietly to the soldier who had come to his office with breakfast. It felt…what…discordant, not to have his batman bring it. Then again, everything was strange this morning. Yonoi could not concentrate on his work. The burning temperature didn’t help, and he floated through the camp like a person possessed. He could only take in what people were saying to him when he focused very hard, and even when he responded properly they looked at him like there was something wrong with him.

When Yonoi did not focus he was drawn back time and again to the dreams, so that he was still not quite sure if he was inhabiting the real world or a sleep-created illusion in which anything could happen, anyone could appear: Celliers could appear as he had last night, how many times… Yonoi wished his head were not quite so hot. He imagined that Celliers was still wrapped around him, spiritually if not actually, suffocating him with delirium.

“…Sir?” came a voice. Yonoi blinked, and found he was standing at the edge of the Japanese soldiers’ mess, clutching one of the wooden posts and squinting across at the prison. A Private was watching him worriedly.

“Just…checking something,” said Yonoi vaguely. Oh, that was the one place he could not go, not now; if he saw Celliers now he would lose what was left of his mind. He blinked and there he was, the devil behind his eyes, his lips against Yonoi’s hair.

He blinked again and he was back in his office, sweating as if he had run a footrace. This was insane. Yonoi picked up a roster and began to fan himself with it while Celliers sat there at the edge of vision, his fair hair fluttering with its breeze. And everything about this morning felt so disconnected Yonoi did not even find it remarkable that he should be there.

 _What is wrong with all of you?_ asked the phantom Celliers, sounding perplexed. _You Japanese. If there’s something on your mind, why can’t you come out and say it?_

“As if _you_ have ever given me a straight reply,” muttered Yonoi, and immediately regretted it because not even Celliers was as mad as he sounded right now.

 _Come and talk to me_ , beguiled the Major. _You can have one now_.

“Please go.” Yonoi fanned himself harder, and closed his eyes. He wished Celliers would stop talking. He wished he could touch him. He wished he was -

No! No, damn it, he did _not_ wish that. He slapped the folder back on the desk in consternation, and took a long drink of the water somebody had left there without him noticing. The inside of his head was more jumbled than a whorehouse; the lunacy that Celliers had breathed into his spirit was spreading. Yonoi had known for days now that he was not right, but this was something different. He had never lost his awareness of time and place.

It would not do, thought Yonoi desperately. If he was to have any chance at all of reclaiming himself there were two things he must ensure: that he stayed far away from the prison, and that he cleaned up camp. He knew the second would be the easiest by far.

A knock at the door interrupted this hard-won thought, and before he could respond the Japanese medic had opened it and stepped in. Yonoi could see him examining him from the other side of the room, his expression sharp and clinical to hide his concern. The Captain supposed he really must look ill, and wondered who had tattled on him. The medic moved forward and opened his mouth.

“Get out!” barked Yonoi, his head ringing with the volume of his own frustrated voice.

“Captain-” began the medic in the tone one would use to a fractious patient or a small child. Yonoi snarled at him; the man was a fool if he thought treating the body had anything to do with this; as if medicine was any match against the whirlwind smashing around the centre of himself, beyond his infatuated heart. What he needed to do was _think_.

“I’m not to be disturbed,” said Yonoi stubbornly, his sallow cheeks burning. “That’s an order.”

“Yes, Sir.” The medic bowed formally and retreated. Yonoi exhaled, put his head in his hands and his hands on the desk and groaned. Then he sat up straight, locked his jaw and began making plans to put himself in order. He would start at the outside and work his way in, and that meant first restoring the camp to its former equilibrium. Such as it was.

Celliers sat behind him, just out of sight, and watched him.

 

* * *

 

 

“Send me Sergeant Hara,” ordered Yonoi to the sentry outside his door. He had small idea how long he had been closeted inside, but by the quality of the light it must be afternoon now. He was exhausted with the effort of working through a fever and a little giddy from not eating, but he felt better. Or at least felt the prospect of feeling better.

Hara knocked briefly at the door, then came in just as Yonoi was telling him to enter. He snapped a salute.

“Report, Sir?”

“Listen first,” said Yonoi, lighting a cigarette with fingers that only shook a little. “Then report.” Hara waited stolidly. “We’ll hold the funeral tomorrow,” ordered Yonoi. “You preside.” It had to be soon: for one, it did not show the proper respect to leave his batman’s body lying around in this heat. But more importantly, Yonoi had a hopeful inkling that it would soothe him; that the sombre ritual and religious words might restore a measure of regulation to his spirit, even as his other plans would force the ugly mood of the camp to right itself. Hara just nodded; he had done it before.

“Next,” said Yonoi, running down his mental checklist. “We have a serious discipline problem with the POWs. Hicksley is not doing his job.” He had of course given up his initial hope – and it had seemed such a _good_ idea – of making Celliers POW commander, but Hicksley was becoming more than an irritant. Yonoi knew that it was down to his own current disorder that the Air Force representative was making his temper flare. The question of weapons experts had been a throwaway one at first, designed merely to oust Hicksley from his post; of course Yonoi had not expected him to contribute to the activities of the enemy. Even the pig-headed British would lie in such a case. But now its importance had become inflated in his mind – not as a question in itself but as a symbol of a power struggle larger than both of them: order against anarchy. The British prisoners _would_ toe the line.

“I could have some respect beaten into him,” suggested Hara, for whom it was always the sensible choice.

“No.” It was a tempting proposition, but would serve no particular purpose. “I have other plans, I’ll inform you closer to the time. Just be aware.” The Sergeant nodded again.

Yonoi groped for what he had wanted to say next. It still felt to him that he was drifting in and out of reality – the afternoon heat had grown intense, slow and lazy, humid enough to give the illusion of breathing in liquid. And Celliers was still there.

“I…wanted to talk about the prisoners,” continued Yonoi, trying not to look at him. It was terribly distracting, and if he didn’t concentrate it was very hard to tell which of his visitors was real. It was worse than that, though. Even as his plans to reclaim himself came together, the urge to slip back into the dream became stronger; he could see it all the time now. Yonoi knew even in his lucid moments that Celliers wanted his soul, and in the midst of these fantasies he had begun to wonder why he shouldn’t have it. Would it not be easier? his traitorous body whispered. Would it not be worth it, to feel Celliers’ arms around him?

Hara and Celliers were both staring at him. Yonoi pulled himself together.

“This has gone on long enough,” he told Hara grimly. “The hospital affair.” He could sense Celliers’ apparition frowning. “Do you still think it was Colonel Lawrence’s radio?” Hara shrugged, which said it all, really. “All right,” said Yonoi. “All right. Someone has to pay for it; order _must_ be restored.”

“Execution?” Hara made it sound so bland. Yonoi nodded, his jaw tight. Celliers shook his blonde head disgustedly. Well, of course he would: he did not wish Yonoi any kind of peace.

“I’ll send your recommendation to Batavia now. They’ll confirm it in a few days.” He stared out of the window to avoid looking at the spirit or giving himself away in front of Hara; the scenery wavered with heat. With this decision, he hoped, his fever would start to pass.

“It’s good for Lawrence,” Hara remarked after a minute, recalling Yonoi’s befuddled attention. “He is a fine soldier. I think he’s been alive far too long.” Yonoi didn’t reply. “…If you call it a death in action,” the Sergeant continued, “his Army would give him the proper honours.”

“Yes,” said Yonoi faintly.

“…Sir,” ventured Hara, after another pause, and when Yonoi looked away from the window he saw the older man’s face twitch. “What about the other prisoner?”

“Don’t touch him!” barked Yonoi, and there it was again, the dream behind his eyes; the scars on Celliers’ back beneath his fingers. From its corner the apparition gave him a complicit smirk. Yonoi leaned back and tried to modulate his tone. “He stays just where he is. Feed him, do not hurt him, do not _talk_ to him.”

“Yes, Sir.” Hara did not look surprised. Yonoi supposed that his irrational inclination for this prisoner was apparent to half his staff by now. He hated that. But he would soon show them that he was in control.

 

* * *

 

 

Yonoi got into bed with a clear determination to stay awake until morning. The funeral was set, the request to his superiors in Batavia was sent. Everything else would take a little longer, but all in all it had been a satisfactory, if eerie, afternoon.

Celliers was sitting in the corner of his room, absent one moment and there the next. Yonoi was too tired to ignore him. This time the Major did not hide on the peripheries of Yonoi’s flustered sight; rather, it was as though he were inviting his captor’s gaze. The spirit, or hallucination, or whatever he was, looked too bright and solid to be possible; more real than real. More real than Yonoi. It was the only thing that made him certain Celliers was not here in the flesh.

 _You think you’re going insane, don’t you_ , remarked Celliers, watching him with something that might be sympathy; Yonoi had never been able to read him properly. He tried to pretend he was not glad to have him here, and almost succeeded.

“Am I?” he asked. “You should know.”

 _Hard to say_. The Major shrugged eloquently. _You’ve always seemed rather loopy to me, but then so do all of you. And chances are so am I. Lawrence says I’m just too stubborn to understand you_. He smiled. _Then again, here you are talking to yourself._

“I am talking to _you_ ,” said Yonoi unhappily.

 _Are you?_ Celliers said thoughtfully, still smiling. It bothered Yonoi as much as it always had. _How do you know this is me? Odds are I’m just part of you, Captain._ Yonoi did not know which idea was more disturbing.

“Whatever you are,” he muttered. He felt lightheaded again. “I know you cannot hurt me.” Celliers leaned forward at that; he was luminous as the moonlight falling through the blinds.

_And you couldn’t hurt me, could you. I’ve been wondering about that, actually; there’s plenty of time to think in my nice comfy cell._

“If you are really just my…subconscious,” replied Yonoi, pausing to search for the English word, “then you would know why I could not.” Celliers quirked an eyebrow at him.

 _Psychoanalysis is it, now?_ he said, looking genuinely amused. _It always surprises me, what you know. Hamlet_ , he continued, leaning his elbows on his knees. _That got my attention, all right._

“What I want to know,” the younger man broke in, unable to bear the prospect of another of Celliers’ distracting conversational turns, “is why you did not hurt _me_. Last night; I know you could have. I would have let you.”

 _Well._ The spirit sighed and pushed a hand through its hair. _There’s a knotty problem._ Yonoi was watching his hands giddily, remembering how they felt in both their physical and intangible forms.

“It does not matter,” he said hurriedly, and deliberately lay down so that Celliers was removed from his field of vision. “From tomorrow, I take back command. In every respect.” Celliers laughed at him, a pitying laugh that seemed specially crafted to undermine him.

 _Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow_ , Celliers quoted. Yonoi remembered the line from his studies, but pointedly ignored it. _But this is still today. And I don’t think you want to be rid of me quite yet._

“Do I not?” Yonoi could feel a tightening in his chest, as if one of Celliers’ elegant hands was squeezing his beating heart. He heard Celliers chuckle softly.

_Close your eyes._

Yonoi obeyed. Tomorrow would be soon enough.


	4. Sutra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yonoi feels everything start to slip.

“…Are you still there?” was the first thing Yonoi asked upon waking. Silence.

Evidently Celliers was not. Yonoi was feeling less feverish, which perhaps explained it. The knowledge that today his plans would be set in motion had already done something to calm him, although he knew he was on almost his last chance at salvation. Or perhaps it was thanks to Celliers’ sweetness last night, in the dark behind his closed eyes. Very likely he _had_ been a hallucination, thought Yonoi: the real Celliers, body or spirit, would never have left him feeling this composed.

Yonoi dressed himself tidily and conducted the morning’s essential military business. He still felt some of his men giving him the side-eye, but that would take care of itself once things began to move in the proper direction again.

In the late afternoon he called Sergeant Hara and they walked together to the formal room where the funeral was to be held. Yonoi restrained himself successfully from asking about his prisoners, which he counted a major achievement. For a little while.

“The Major gave us a lot of messages for you,” Hara told him levelly as they skirted the back of the dilapidated Christian church.

“What?” snapped Yonoi; the mention of him was enough to put a crack in his resolve. “Why did you not tell me?”

“You were asleep,” explained Hara reasonably. “And the medic said to let you be.”

“I told you not to talk to him!” said Yonoi, who was even more frightened of the real Celliers than the ghostly one. He did not need to hear anything that came out of that lovely, manipulative mouth.

“I didn’t, Sir,” explained Hara, as they entered the ceremony room. He began to set up the small shrine for the funeral rites. “But I took night patrol at the prison and he just kept talking to me.”

“Well?” Yonoi was unable to help himself. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” said his subordinate implacably. “I don’t speak English. Not that that stopped him,” he added. “But Harada on sentry duty translated the gist for me.”

“And? What was the ‘gist’?” Yonoi knelt down and stared at Hara’s back as he laid out each item neatly. Everything in its proper place. It pleased Yonoi, and was almost enough to distract him from the current cause of his distemper. Almost. “Well?!”

“He wants a shave, he says,” began Hara easily, slipping the priest’s cloth around his neck. “He’s so blonde, though, he doesn’t really need it.”

“Not a chance.” Yonoi would not trust Celliers anywhere near a razor, as unpredictable as he was: not so much for what harm he could do to others as for what he might do to himself. The thought appalled him. “What else?”

“He’d like some flowers to look at.” Yonoi stiffened, remembering the hibiscus and how close he had felt to being devoured in the same way. The dream again. “Something about garlands.”

“‘ _Fantastic garlands_ ’,” quoted Yonoi wanly, in English. Celliers was really too much. The older man shrugged.

“They’re a funny lot,” added Hara, who had dropped into a relaxed mood as he set up the altar. “You wouldn’t think they’d be a people for art, but there you are.” Yonoi scowled. “In the absence of flowers,” continued the Sergeant, blithely, “he’d like to see _you_.”

“Ah.” Yonoi’s heart seemed stuck between his ribs; he suddenly felt himself flush with the same burning sensation as he had woken with after the dream. Celliers was thinking of him. How far had his spirit ventured outside the prison to gratify itself? Yonoi wanted to look around for him, but snarled at himself inwardly until the urge went away.

“Tell him no,” he instructed Hara. “I don’t have time to be at a prisoner’s beck and call.” He hesitated. “Bring him flowers if he wants them, though. Tell some POW to collect them on the work detail.” Hara nodded neutrally, though Yonoi could not shake the feeling he was being evaluated.

“I’m ready,” said the older man. “If you are, Sir.”

“Yes,” said Yonoi, and exhaled firmly. “Begin.”

 

Two hours later Yonoi was feeling almost well. The rhythmic sound of the Buddhist sutra was like balm to his deeply traditional soul, and with Hara focused in meditation on his book Yonoi was in a state of remote, solitary calm.

Eventually his attention wandered from the syllables of the chant and he travelled up from his contemplative state to consider dispassionately what had to be done next. He had a plan for the POW camp, and he could deal with Hicksley at the same time. That would take a little while, but in the meantime there was Lawrence.

Lawrence. Yonoi’s spirit darkened somewhat as an image darted past him of the injured British soldier on the ground, Celliers crouched above him in the moonlight. Comforting and being comforted. He hated the memory, and what it said about their connection. Celliers leaned on the Colonel even though the man was without power here, and whether he genuinely needed support or whether it was yet another trick to increase Yonoi’s disorder it was inordinately successful

It was unfair to Lawrence, thought Yonoi, against the low ribbon of Hara’s sing-song speech; but he had to go. Because of the radio, and because there was Celliers and it was too hard to pretend he did not mind. It was less about Lawrence himself – Yonoi still respected the soldier and actually rather liked the man – and more his ability to shift himself between the viewpoints of two legendarily self-centred cultures. Lawrence understood Yonoi; but he understood Celliers too, in a way Yonoi would never be able to, for all his earnest intelligence. That was what made Yonoi envy him.

Yonoi wanted very badly to believe that his decision to execute Lawrence was based purely on the acceptable practice of making _someone_ pay in order that the balance of society be maintained. He did not wish Lawrence in particular dead, he told himself; but he had become the most entangled in the hospital rebellion – was the closest to that radio. So it was only right that it be him. Besides, there could be no shame in death for a man such as Lawrence. Hara was right, he was a fine soldier.

What he did not wish to dwell on was the nagging idea that all of this had fallen on Lawrence because of jealousy, _his_ jealousy. That would make killing him an act of pique rather than righteousness; and it would become a symptom of his madness for Celliers, not a cure. Well, it was arranged now, and the calming stream of the funeral sutra was only settling him more firmly in his course.

But Lawrence at least deserved an explanation. Lawrence would want to understand. So Yonoi had him sent for.

 

Lawrence looked as dishevelled as Celliers, and as sick as Yonoi felt. He was almost vibrating with fury, his precise English voice coming through gritted teeth as he expressed his incredulity at what was going to happen to him. It was an odd sight for Yonoi, who had only ever known the foreign Colonel as the soft-spoken arbiter of compromise. He was sure that Celliers, in his relentless intent to destroy Yonoi, was causing echoes of his chaos in everyone around him. Even the guard who had brought Lawrence in looked like he was about to break down.

Only the constant comforting hum of Hara’s sutra in the background kept Yonoi clipped and focused. He answered Lawrence’s disbelieving questions in monosyllables; he knew Lawrence was only pretending not to comprehend his course of logic.

“You understand, Lawrence,” he told Lawrence solemnly, and if there was a cruelty in the intensity of his tone it was not intentional. “You must die for _me_.”

This Yonoi had always felt at ease with: the place violence and sacrifice played in keeping his world on its solid course through history. Violence was necessary; it kept order, and if the current order was not sufficient then you used it to carve out a new order. If you lost you were punished, and you paid the price without complaint. That was why Yonoi was here now, enduring this threat to his soul in the back end of the colonies, rather than at the head of an army as the shining officer he would have been if everything had not gone to ruin in the days before the war.

Violence was restorative. It soothed him, when it was carried out with method and purpose. He had known that when he stood second for his batman, and he knew it now. But Lawrence, it seemed, did not wish to acknowledge it.

“I understand,” spat Lawrence, his legs twisted under him from the interrogation by Hara’s squad. He did, Yonoi could see; and for the first time the Captain contemplated the vast gulf between understanding and acceptance. “But I won’t die for _you!_ ”

The British soldier was yelling now, turning his attention from Yonoi in revolt to shout at Hara, who ignored him and kept on chanting. The guard struck Lawrence from behind, and the two began to struggle for the second time in as many minutes. Yonoi was perturbed; this was not how he had envisioned the scene, and the boiling emotions of Lawrence and the Japanese soldier were threatening to break through the fragile oasis of calm he had crafted. He could feel the sweat from the close room soaking his shirt.

He put a stop to the guard with a quick hand motion, then carefully turned to face the commemorative shrine. He could not look at the two of them, not if he wanted to maintain his control. He bent his head instead and tried to pray, but when he closed his eyes he saw what he knew he would see. He opened them again wretchedly and found they had filled with tears. For whom? His aide-de-camp, or Lawrence, or himself? Or just the image of Celliers tattooed on the inside of his eyelids?

Lawrence was becoming more agitated, decrying Yonoi’s gods. In this moment Yonoi was no longer sure what that meant, but it was trigger enough for the injured POW to drag himself to his feet, stumble to the small alter and demolish it with several frantic blows. The guard raced over to restrain him, weeping himself now, and Yonoi jumped up, sword in his hand. It shook him to his roots, the sight of the pristine shrine in tatters and his precarious peace of mind gone awry with it. Only Hara had not moved or stopped his recitation.

Yonoi bit his tongue hard to restrain himself from ordering Lawrence executed on the spot. He growled at the guard to return him to his cell, but Lawrence screamed at him to wait. The Captain did, holding the cracked edges of himself together.

“What’ll happen to…to Major Celliers?” demanded Lawrence, now forcing himself to calm as much as Yonoi was.

“That is none of your business,” Yonoi told him in a hoarse voice, because there it was again, the panicked stab of jealousy when anyone, especially Lawrence, said his name. When Lawrence next spoke he sounded accusing.

“You wouldn’t execute…Major Celliers…for a crime like bringing a wireless into a ward.” Oh, Yonoi knew what he was insinuating about his preferential treatment. The fact that he was right – or at least partly right – did not do much to redeem him in the younger man’s eyes. Yonoi was holding onto himself with everything he had, dreading the thought that the phantom Celliers might appear to witness this pandemonium.

“Your friend…was a disappointment to me,” he told Lawrence serenely, his eyes still damp. Lawrence smiled incredulously, but it was not a lie. Just one minute grain of truth in the ocean of his feelings for that complicated creature. And then, because he could still not bear to be cruel to Celliers and because Lawrence was a good man, all in all: “Would you like to see him before you die?”

Lawrence nodded. Yonoi gave the order, then left the funeral. It was no comfort to him now; his gods, as the British soldier had termed them, had failed. Well, he would not fail with Lawrence.

 

* * *

 

 

Celliers had not come. Yonoi had been waiting for him since the shambolic funeral with dread and raw yearning, but his office and quarters were as unhaunted as they had ever been. It was not exactly a shock to Yonoi, to find out how miserable this made him; despite his plan to regain control of himself he was well aware of how strong the spirit’s pull was. And here, alone at night and eaten up with jealousy, he was unable to help himself.

He wondered why his apparition was not here. He was half afraid that it had all been a product of his prostrating fever; but the fever still persisted, lurking beneath his skin. Or was it that Celliers was currently engaged? Would rather spend his time talking to Lawrence through the wooden wall between their cells than tormenting Yonoi? Maybe Celliers thought he had done his job: that the Japanese officer could not be any more deranged than he already was.

Whatever the reason, it was late and Yonoi was alone, and he hated it. He even thought about calling Hara and having the prisoner sent for; but that was far beyond the realms of acceptability, and if Yonoi hoped to retain or regain – he was not yet sure which – the respect of his men he could not allow himself to be seen fraternizing in such a shameless way. Besides, Hara was on night duty and no doubt had enough to deal with: it was Christmas, which meant virtually nothing to Yonoi outside English novels but which tended to make the POWs rowdy. That was the last thing they needed.

“Are you there?” he said softly, when it had passed midnight. He had tried to sleep and could not; it was too hot, he could not lie still, and he found himself afraid of lapsing back into the delirium of the day before. He was aware that he sounded unhinged, talking to an empty room. But it had been a day since he had seen the ghostly Celliers, two since he had had the luxury of trading words with the real thing. His chest ached for the sight of him.

“You should let Lawrence sleep,” he continued. “He has had a difficult few days.” He had moved to sit cross-legged at the low table, abandoning his bed to leaf through a small English paperback of Great War poetry the guards had confiscated from a recalcitrant POW. It was strange stuff, uncomfortably foreign but littered with moments of painful and urgent recognition. Yonoi felt oddly akin to it, even though he did not understand it at all. It was really very much like Celliers.

“…I want to talk with you,” he admitted, after another verse had alienated him with its Latin. “I know you know I am thinking of you. You can hear me, can’t you?” he said wistfully. “Whoever else you are with.”

 _…I can_ , replied Celliers’ voice after a span of time in which Yonoi had read and been discomfited by two more difficult poems. The Captain jerked his head up and Celliers appeared, leaning against the wall. Yonoi felt his heart palpitate gladly, while the rest of him broke out in apprehensive gooseflesh. He looked up at the apparition. Celliers did not appear his usual self, which was either laconic or terrifyingly intense or just plain impossible to read. He looked…distant. Cool and disinterested, and the Major had never been that, not with Yonoi.

“I am awake, aren’t I?” Yonoi asked doubtfully, not that it mattered much at this point in his descent. Celliers looked at him.

_You tell me. You called me. What do you want?_

“You did not come,” said Yonoi, almost accusingly. “Does that mean I am less mad, or more?” He half expected to get another line from Hamlet for that – he could not have hooked Celliers’ initial attention with a play more fitting to insanity – but Celliers was just watching him remotely and that discomposing smile was absent. “What is it?” he demanded, feeling more shaken than ever. Then, “Is it Lawrence you are angry about? Because I have to do it, and it is _your fault_ it is necessary.”

 _Who said I’m angry?_ countered Celliers, but without his usual drawl. Clipped and chilly, as Yonoi had tried to be earlier. The apparition was a lot better at it. _Maybe you’re projecting. Perhaps you’re just angry at yourself._

“Of course I am.” Yonoi sighed. “It is my fault, I know. My weakness in letting you in.” He gazed up at Celliers, and wondered if that would ever stop being pleasurable. Even the Major’s detached, faintly disgusted air could not prevent the intensity of the experience. Yonoi wanted Celliers to approach him, to touch him in some way, scatter him as he did in Yonoi’s dreams. As he had last night. But that was before Yonoi had condemned Celliers’ friend to death for the crime of claiming his attention.

 _Of course I’m angry,_ Celliers said, as if in answer to this thought. _Of course I’m punishing you. That’s why I didn’t come; you know you don’t deserve this charming version of me._ He curled his lip. _But turns out you’re dangerously wilful when you put your mind to it, Captain_ , he continued. _When you let your obsession take the reins. So here I am, product of your handsome, chaotic head._

“ _My_ chaos?” Yonoi exclaimed indignantly, although in truth he was just glad Celliers was speaking. “There is no disorder in me that was not put there by _you_.” The illusion folded its arms.

 _You are a very naïve person_. Celliers paused. _And you can count that double if you think your neat cache of plans will keep you away from me._

“We shall see,” said Yonoi, who was getting a worrying amount of satisfaction from the mere fact – which was not even a fact – of Celliers’ presence. Even like this. Even cold and uncharacteristically plain-spoken. His eyes were still mesmerizing, his voice still a seduction, and the tips of his long fingers a stimulus for the memory of that dream. If Yonoi’s soul could be captured and scattered tonight, without fuss, he thought he would not fight it. If he could be taken by Celliers before the morning arrived, with its hard tasks and painful denial of what he really desired.

 _Just what is it you want from me?_ Celliers asked, chiming in again with his thoughts. _The real Major can’t sleep with you invoking me all over camp. So, what do you want? Something to stare at so I can’t tell if I’m an idol to you or a carnival freakshow? Some ambiguous conversational sparring that throws you out of your depth? The chance that I’ll do all those things again, the things you think you should hate?_ By the time he finished this diatribe he was beginning to sound enthusiastic, the gleam returning to his eyes.

And Yonoi, who had only understood half the words he said, nodded almost desperately.

“Yes.”

 _…All right_ , said the apparition, with a sudden unreadable smile, and knelt to pull him close. _Seeing as it’s Christmas._ When Yonoi closed his eyes with a shudder he could feel Celliers’ lips, his soldier’s hands soothing on the back of his neck. He leaned in with a guilty sense of gratitude, and waited for the morning, when he could start afresh and try once more to banish this spirit from his world. When Celliers began to whisper in his ear he almost wished it would never arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, the characters in this film are so interesting! All of Oshima's films, actually. Especially Yonoi, who manages to be sympathetic and really unlikeable at the same time (although tbh sympathy factor is probably helped by his hotness XD). Still, it would have been equally fun to write the same fic from Celliers' POV.


	5. Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas! For Yonoi, this does not turn out to be a festive occasion.  
> Also: Melodrama overload, so this one is quite short.

Yonoi woke up and found himself hot and still smarting from the havoc of the funeral yesterday. Lawrence had made it an abject failure in terms of restoring his spiritual balance, but Lawrence would redress that by dying on his behalf, whether he liked it or not. And this was not the only play Yonoi had left to make; but his next plan should be executed soon, before he slipped any further. So he ordered all the foreign prisoners’ representatives to the commander’s office. It was time to clean his house.

The POW officers were behind their time, as usual. Christmas again, Yonoi supposed with an annoyance that was quite irrational. He sat at the commander’s desk with as much physical poise as he could, trying to blend into the room’s stark symmetry; anything to bolster his weakening sense of order. He closed his eyes, managing to temporarily banish the image of Celliers, and tried to envision his path out of danger. After too long he heard Hara’s announcement. The door opened and the foreign officers filed in.

Yonoi opened his eyes deliberately and the first thing he saw was Hicksley. That did not bring him any pleasure but he would not have to deal with the man for long. Yonoi’s plan to restore the camp revolved around an idea his superiors in Batavia had had to build an airstrip for better military access on the other side of the forest. Up to now Yonoi had maintained that he did not have enough fit men to aid in the construction; those he had were needed for work near the camp. But after everything that had happened – Celliers had happened – he had decided to send a POW contingent after all. Over half the fit prisoners, and the most troublesome at that. Hicksley would go with them as representative, which should satisfy that buffoon’s delusions of grandeur and remove him from Yonoi’s reach before he could goad the Captain into being any more reckless.

His almost hopeful reflection was cut short as he caught sight of Lawrence limping into place on Hicksley’s left. Lawrence! For a moment Yonoi stared at him in sheer confusion.

“Lawrence. Why are _you_ here?” he demanded indignantly. He had given no such order.

Hara told him. Yonoi listened, less in anger than in astonishment, as the Sergeant bashfully confessed that he had been on duty last night – Christmas night – and decided to release Lawrence from his cell and his condemned status at the same time.

“ _What?_ ” said Yonoi, unable to credit it: implacable, brutal Hara in a festive mood and handing out Christmas gifts of freedom willy-nilly. Lawrence was watching them both carefully, his large eyes easy to read. Hara explained further: that deeper investigation had found it was _not_ Lawrence’s radio but another patient’s in the hospital, and that the criminal had confessed and been executed forthwith. Again, without asking his Captain’s permission. Without even consulting him. Hara would of course take responsibility, he said with the trademark twitch of his head.

Yonoi could not think how to react, other than to wonder if the second accused had been any guiltier than the first. And here was Lawrence, _out_. Another plan scattered like dust. Yonoi gaped at them. But Hara was not finished.

“Also,” the Sergeant said, at least having the decency to look ashamed, “I released Jack Celliers.” Yonoi felt his heart begin to skitter unevenly in his chest.

“ _Celliers?_ ” he hissed. “What do you mean?!”

Then it came out: Hara had got drunk last night and, intoxicated, had decided to let both men return to the POW barracks. Because he did not think they were _bad people_. Yonoi felt a chill crawl up his back: this was not his Sergeant; Hara did not care if people were bad or good. He did his duty with even-handed violence, and Yonoi had never known him drink so much he would misunderstand an order.

With a powerful rush of despair he realized that this was _not_ Hara’s fault. How could it be? It was Celliers’. He had seduced the Sergeant as ruthlessly as he had Yonoi’s batman; as he had Yonoi himself. Now he had freed himself, had worked a spell on the most indefatigable soldier in camp. What was the use of denying him anymore? Yonoi experienced an instant of the purest awe for his demon, who had spread his reach across a whole barracks from the isolation of his prison cell. _That_ was why Celliers had come to him last night: to gloat secretly about being free while Yonoi had blithely considered himself safe. He was _not_ safe. Nothing was safe. There could be no restraining the evil spirit now. The thought of locking Celliers up again did not even cross his mind.

Yonoi began to shiver, and realised the sickness was closing in upon him again. He sat silently and fought against it. He knew everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to explode; no doubt Celliers was waiting somewhere too. But he would _not_. Not while he still had a thread of control. He narrowed his eyes and turned to speak to Hara.

“Captain Yonoi.” It was Hicksley, damn him. His full voice cut through Yonoi’s desperate attempt to restrain himself and made him tremble worse; not with illness or fear, but with anger. “Whatever happened to your idea to replace me with Major Celliers?”

“Shut up, Sir,” Yonoi heard Lawrence whisper urgently. Yes, Lawrence could read his captor. Lawrence knew. And he knew and Yonoi knew the exact words it would take for that thread of control to snap.

Yonoi shoved his chair backwards and stood up, leaning on the desk with his fists so that the muscles of his arms corded. In that moment he was not thinking of restraint, or of his plan; he was no longer thinking at all. All his rationality had been replaced with an incendiary rage when he heard Celliers’ name on Hicksley’s tongue.

He leaned forward, and in a vicious tone demanded, yet again, the number of weapons experts among the POWs in camp. The question itself did not matter, had never mattered. Hicksley’s reply did, and Yonoi knew what it would be.

“There are none here, Sir,” said the officer steadfastly. Yonoi heard it almost with satisfaction; this time he felt justified in exploding. In a shaking voice he exchanged a violent barrage of words with the stoic Hicksley – whose calm made it even worse – then demanded to see every man in camp on parade, _now_. He could hear himself shouting, but he no longer cared what they thought of him. He caught Lawrence staring at him miserably, and felt even wilder. The foreign officers turned in formation and walked out, leaving him with Hara.

Yonoi had no idea what he was going to do with everyone when he had them all before him, but someone was going to suffer. It might be him or it might be one of them or it might be everybody. Any insanity was possible because Celliers was free, and Yonoi would finally see him again. And now he could make Yonoi do _anything_.

Yonoi found, through his tumultuous anger, that he was not currently afraid of Celliers. He was already disintegrating, after all: was falling apart with wanting him, and the camp was falling with him. What else could the demon do? Yonoi felt he was already as mad as he was ever going to get.

He swallowed carefully, hardly daring to breathe out in case his next words were to condemn someone to death. Someone random, for the sheer confusion of it. He managed to keep it in, and instead told Hara about his plan to send the prisoners to build the airstrip. It was even more important now that Hicksley and Lawrence get away from him.

“Do you want to go in command?” he asked the Sergeant. It was not really a question, and Hara knew it. He agreed, of course. Yonoi passed the older man a ceremonial cigarette, then lit one for himself. The curling smoke felt cool in comparison to the banked conflagration inside him.

The command would be a good opportunity for his subordinate, Yonoi knew; but that was not the point. The point was that Hara had been corrupted, albeit through no fault of his own, and Yonoi could no longer have him in the camp. For now he confined him to his quarters; he could not trust him with what he was about to do. Yonoi would dispatch everyone who had ever fallen into Celliers’ hands, and if that left him alone with the spirit…well. If it came to that, Yonoi would gladly give himself up; he would make a gift of his shattered soul. If only to keep the rest of his world safe.

 

* * *

 

 

The soldiers were lined up in the dust under the broiling sun: the prisoners of war in their own ragged lines and Yonoi’s troops running to face them with an impressive arsenal of weapons. Yonoi drove up and alighted the Jeep, sword at his hip and a crop held loosely in his other hand. He felt that he was prepared to do _anything_. Everybody was sweating; he must be the only one who could not feel the heat, thanks to the combustion already in progress beneath his skin. But he could sense the charge in the air.

The ranks of POWs were impressive; Yonoi had not remembered there being so many at the last parade. But it was not enough. He had been yelling at Hicksley since he got out here, and it was rather liberating, so when he demanded to see _all_ the prisoners it was at the top of his voice. The foreign medics, and not only the foreign ones, were now staring at him aghast, as if they were at last seeing what had been happening for days under the surface of his composure.

As the long, broken line of the wounded began to exit the hospital and stumble onto the field, Yonoi realised it was not just him that was mad, but all of it: everything that had been done here by him, and the men before him, and before them, on both sides of the line. It made him feel better, or at least more comfortable in his insanity, even as the pitiful spectacle dismayed him. But he could not think about them for long, because there were too many people here who already demanded his attention: Hicksley, Lawrence…and Celliers himself. The Major was standing beside Lawrence, and his distorted gaze saw everything. He was too far away for Yonoi to see his face clearly, which was all he wanted to do.

All of a sudden he felt compelled to cause a reaction; to trigger some emotion, delight or disgust, on that far-away and unreadable face. This show was all for the demon’s benefit, after all, and Yonoi wanted him to acknowledge it. Although part of it was that he could not stand to have Celliers look at him as coldly and distantly as he had last night. He could not bear it. Not now he was really here in front of him.

“No stretchers!” he shouted pitilessly, and every man but Celliers looked appalled and began to protest furiously. Yonoi struck out at any soldier who tried to face him. “Make them walk!” He could _feel_ them loathing him, and it meant absolutely nothing to him. Celliers was still watching him narrowly. For all Yonoi knew – which was not much, in that instant – the spirit was using its impassivity to spur him on to greater chaos, but he could not help himself. He no longer thought he could stop.

When one of the badly hurt patients collapsed onto the grass Yonoi experienced the curious sensation of being simultaneously sickened and triumphant. It was the sure knowledge that the soldier’s death was his doing that made him feel ill; but it was Hicksley’s outburst of disgust that caused the triumph. Yonoi had never wanted to hurt someone quite so badly as this puffing, righteous Englishman.

And he _could_. There was nothing to stop him, not now that he had let go of himself: not the prisoners, nor the Geneva Convention, nor his own loyal men. Yonoi felt dizzy with the freedom of madness, and quite petrified by its lure. His evil spirit would witness something now…

Yonoi had quite forgotten that his plan had been to restore the camp to order; to send his enemies far away to safety. All he could think of was Celliers’ unbearably impassive face.

He ordered Hicksley to step out of the line and stand before him, and for good measure grabbed representatives of the other armed forces branches. For the last time ever, he demanded that Hicksley tell him how many experts they had in the group.

“None, Sir,” said Hicksley firmly, as Yonoi had been sure he would. The sweat was pouring off the man, but he sounded calm. One look at his eyes told Yonoi that Hicksley knew he was going to die. Men were so easy to read. Not like Celliers.

“I’ll kill you.” Yonoi announced it almost quietly. Then he turned on his heel and strode back from the line of captives, surrounded by a cadre of armed soldiers who dragged Hicksley with them. He could hear the other prisoners cursing him, and the shouts of his own men as they raised their guns to quell them. Yonoi did not care. He was descending.

Yonoi approached the kneeling man, and as he drew his sword and murmured a ritual prayer into the blade he felt a kind of serenity spread through him. It was a beautiful sword, tempered with endless care and discipline; for a second Yonoi remembered his batman and the elegant, regulated moves of the training kata. He bit his lip. As he did so, he wondered feverishly who he was doing this for: if the demon did not care, did not respond…who was this _for_? He could not believe it was for himself. But it was too late now: the world was watching.

As Yonoi aimed his sword he paused; perhaps there _was_ an essential part of himself left, and now it was contemplating the enormity of what he was about to do. Or else it was something from outside that kept his shaking muscles still, something with a stronger hold on him than he had on himself. Yonoi looked up; and there was Celliers, finally reacting, breaking the line of assorted POWs and beginning to stride towards him. In dread and a kind of disbelief Yonoi watched him come; not one man moved, not one seemed to notice the prisoner advancing on him.

Yonoi thought then that _this_ was madness, that only now had he achieved it, in front of all his soldiers and the captives who despised him; that what he was seeing was in fact the phantom Celliers and the real one was standing back in the ranks, watching with satisfaction as the Captain lost his mind. The figure strode closer, brushing its uniform down and straightening its hat in a grotesque parody of order; it was a mockery, thought Yonoi frantically, directed against himself and his blooming lunacy. The only sign that this might be real was his expression: Celliers’ face was frightened and beautiful in its intensity, as if he knew how insanely foolish he was being and did not care. The apparition had always been in control; this Celliers looked resigned, almost stunned, as he had the night he had begged Yonoi to touch him. But still he approached.

“ _Go back!_ ” breathed Yonoi, awe clutching at him. He said it again, a louder invocation, and again, and still nobody would help him. His own men seemed paralysed, and the demon in front of him did not slow for an instant. Then Celliers was standing before him and Yonoi’s sword had lowered itself, helpless as ever in the face of his power.

Celliers just stood there, hands behind his back, and his eyes filled the entire horizon; there was nowhere to look but into them, and Yonoi saw his own reflection trapped there. In panic he reached out and _pushed_ him, dimly thankful he was wearing gloves so that his skin would not touch him; but still his hand was on Celliers’ throat, his face, and with that push his dream knocked once again against reality. Yonoi wanted to shout aloud in fear, but he could not.

Celliers picked himself quickly off the ground. His hat had been knocked off and his golden hair shone in the harsh sunlight as he turned to face Yonoi. He looked quite calm now, as if he had left anything that was human in him behind in the dust. That terrifying, bewitching smile was just visible at the corners of his mouth, fading to solemnity as he reached out and, in front of a hundred sets of eyes, took Yonoi’s upper arms in both hands. Yonoi was staring up at him, at his strange and inescapable face; he knew that even if Celliers struck him he would not be able to order him killed. Yonoi would kill every prisoner in camp before he could harm this one.

But Celliers did not hit him. Instead he leaned forward and kissed him as deliberately as if he was signing Yonoi’s death warrant.

Yonoi could not move, either to fling him off or pull him closer. He could only feel, and at last the dream slid completely into place to overlay the solid world: Celliers’ strong hands were grasping him tight, cheek pressed against his, Celliers’ lips cool and bruising on either side of his face, and he felt so _alive_ and perfect and at the same time Yonoi knew he was lost. Finally, with that public ritual of possession, Celliers had his soul. And worse.

With one press of skin to skin Celliers detonated not only Yonoi but the entire social order. It was rebellion of such audacity that every Japanese soldier there stopped breathing; Yonoi could physically feel the silence crash in on him, and understood that the camp was trembling on the edge of entropy. Everything he had ever believed, and worked for, fought for, endured in the name of his nation was about to erupt; the explosion of his own sense of self would annihilate the entire community in its fallout.

That hurt worse than anything, the knowledge that everything that had formed him would be destroyed because of his boundless infatuation with this demon. Celliers had let him go and was standing in front of him, gazing into his eyes calmly, his mouth now a stoic, sombre line as he waited. Yonoi was the one with the uncontrollable urge to laugh, or scream, he did not know which, and it didn’t matter because he could do neither. All he could do was raise his sword once more and pray that this time it would be allowed to fall.

Celliers stood there, all light English eyes and fair hair, looking as remote and unknowable as he had when Yonoi had first laid eyes on him; when he had been an object of fascination and not ruin. But Yonoi _knew_ him now, alien and inexplicable as he was. Because he had belonged to him since the moment they met, and finally, finally he had him. Yonoi cried out without sound, because he could not lower his sword and he could not strike; every muscle was taut enough to rupture.

Just as Yonoi accepted the certainty that either his brain or his heart was really going to burst – a physical manifestation of his inner dissolution – his body did the only thing available to it, and collapsed. He did not feel his soldiers catch him, or hear their frightened yells. All he could see was Celliers’ face, and if he never saw anything else again he would not care. Yonoi stared into his mismatched eyes raptly, until they disappeared from view as his assailant was tackled by a swarm of men and dragged to the ground. The scene descended into uproar around him.

With the loss of his sight, Yonoi passed out.


	6. Luna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yonoi stops trying to have the world make sense.

“Is he awake?”

“I don’t think so, Sir. I think he’s dreaming with his eyes open.”

Yonoi had been aware of people speaking, on and off, for what seemed like a long time. Sometimes he spoke back. He could hear them as if they were right beside him, but he could not tell who was talking; still less if they were real or not.

Sometimes Yonoi was in his quarters at camp, and sometimes in his old childhood room at his family home, overlooking the shrine. At other times he was walking through the jungle clearings under the bright shadow of the moon; and, just occasionally, he found himself in a garden that did not belong to any of his own memories but was as riotously blooming and temperate as a set in a Hollywood picture. These places came and went as arbitrarily as when he had been in the grip of his recent fever, and were punctuated with longer periods of claustrophobic blackness in which he experienced only a crippling loneliness. He hoped this was not death.

He hoped that one of the voices might be Celliers’, and certainly he felt disoriented and overwhelmed enough for it to be so. He thought that perhaps this strange muddled world had all been conjured by Celliers’ kiss – the intimate salute that he had dreaded and longed for, finally made flesh. Yonoi did not feel real, but it did not exactly seem like a dream, either; maybe this timeless hinterland was the place you vanished into when the spirit at last took possession of your soul.

He would not mind, he found. He would not care that he could not keep his body in one location or a single thought in his head, if only his demon was here with him. He could not recall seeing Celliers anywhere in this kaleidoscope of landscapes, but that did not mean anything. Sometimes he felt Celliers might be very near him. So when Yonoi heard voices, he listened.

And gradually, almost reluctantly, he realised he was alive.

“He’s crying,” said an unfamiliar person in Japanese. Yonoi had not been aware that he was, and reached up to touch his face. He was sitting in the garden again amid a confusion of unfamiliar flowers. His cheek felt too hot, but not wet. Abruptly the warm sun turned bright and glaring as a torch; he looked around uneasily.

“Yes, Sir,” came another voice. Yonoi could not see anyone. “It could just be a reaction to the light; his pupils are responding, do you see?” The sunlight flashed again.

“Hmm. Well, if he’s going to wake up, I need to decide what to do with him: will he be fit to serve? The reports of his behaviour…”

“Physically, I dare say he’ll recover well enough. On the other hand, it’s hard to tell with _mental_ illness,” said the second voice diplomatically. “Especially in wartime. But did he do anything that was not his duty?”

“Strictly, no. He could put a case for all his actions, if he has enough mind left to do so.”

“Then…”

“Oh, we can handle a traumatised officer, Doctor,” the first speaker broke in. “The Imperial Army does not much care what’s wrong with a man’s mind if he carries out his orders.” Yonoi wished they would go away; he was rather glad that he could not see them. The voice had turned doubtful. “But you must have heard his subordinates. His aide-de-camp and the hara-kiri, and…well. What they thought.”

“Sir!” said the voice of reason, sounding astonished. “You can’t be serious. An evil spirit? Really?”

“Not everything is in science,” the first speaker told him crossly. Yonoi’s mind automatically translated that into English and turned up Hamlet yet again: Heaven, Earth, philosophy, he couldn’t remember it clearly. Perhaps Celliers _was_ communicating with him. “And I can tell you that some of my superiors would rather leave a lunatic in command here than a man possessed.”

“I think he’s waking up,” said the medic, cutting off that line of thought. Yonoi hoped not. The idea that this garden was not real was suddenly terrible to him. But even as he thought it the scene wavered, collapsing into familiar blackness.

It remained dark for a long time. Eventually it broke apart and he was hit with a confusion of images that made him feel sick and dizzy, but which slowly resolved themselves into the ceiling of his room at camp. That was nothing new, he was often flung back into awareness there. This time, though, there was someone with him.

“Captain!” cried a voice earnestly, “are you awake?” Yonoi blinked and then saw him, and to his ineffable disappointment it was only one of his soldiers. He had wanted it to be Celliers, but at the same time had known it was not. “Can you speak?” continued the young man.

“…Yes,” managed Yonoi, and immediately found he no longer could. There was a look on the soldier’s face of relief, though Yonoi could not tell whether it was because he had survived or because he was not jabbering like an imbecile. The man darted out of the room and Yonoi looked around. This was definitely his quarters; he saw his sword in its mounted frame on the wall. And there had been a person here, who looked thoroughly commonplace and very much alive; so he supposed he might be awake.

Yonoi wondered why it felt less real than anywhere he had been before.

 

* * *

 

 

Yonoi knew what had happened before they told him, though he could not remember if he had overheard the news in the midst of his delirium or if Celliers had come to him disembodied and talked to him about it during the days of his brain fever, if that was indeed what it had been. He no longer had any baseline for what was real.

It seemed that he really had woken in a different world, a different camp: Hicksley and half the POW prisoners had gone as planned, marched off to build the airstrip, and Hara in charge of them. Their barracks were almost empty, only the hospital remaining. The doctor and the lieutenant who had been put in temporary charge had gone back to the city, he was informed. Yonoi did not recall seeing them – though he supposed he must have heard them – but the stamp of their influence was everywhere. No more so than on the patch of white sand outside. He could only see the edge of it from his quarters; but he knew what was there. The carefully closed mouths of the soldiers attending him told him what was there.

At last he felt strong enough to sit up. He braced himself with both hands behind him and called for the sentry outside his door. His own voice sounded strange; remote and unused, as if it was somebody else’s. He ignored the man’s doubtful tone and told him to send for one of the English-speaking prison guards. He had to know.

It was Private Harada. Sergeant Hara had mentioned him, Yonoi remembered. The boy – he was little more – saluted, then swallowed visibly. Yonoi took a lightheaded breath.

“Tell me about the English Major.” Harada looked uncomfortable. “I know he must have been…executed,” Yonoi reassured him grimly. “The Lieutenant knows his duty. But you must tell me what happened.”

“Sir, I-” began the young soldier, shaking his head. Yonoi doubted he knew he was doing it.

“I know you were on prison duty,” his Captain told him. “I know you would have been there. So report.”

Not having a choice, Harada did. He did not look happy about it. And as he listened, Yonoi found it was nothing he did not already know. It was as if he was linked to Celliers now, irreversibly connected by the physicality of his kiss; as if deep in his illness he had felt the burning sand rise around him too. He wondered if he looked as despairing as he felt; Harada sounded scared.

“…What did he say?” he demanded of Harada, who was staring worriedly past his left ear. “Did he say anything?”

“He said…” began the Private, and stopped. He looked wary.

“Tell me,” ordered Yonoi. He would have hit Harada if he had possessed any strength.

“He just laughed, Sir,” Harada corrected himself. “And when Lieutenant Ishida told him to stop, he said it didn’t matter what we did because…because _you_ were his punishment.” The young soldier winced. “And then we put him in the ground, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even struggle.”

“Get out,” said Yonoi in a low voice, and Harada saluted and left the room with almost offensive alacrity. Yonoi did not notice. He put his head in his hands, and found that now he was awake he could not cry. He wanted to desperately, but there was a laugh stuck in his throat and he knew if he made a sound it would be all that came out. The thought of Celliers dead was quite impossible, but he saw it must be true; the superstitious soldiers would have been delighted to do it. But to hear it was not enough.

That was when Yonoi knew he would have to see him.

 

* * *

 

 

It was gone midnight when Yonoi willed himself out of bed and slowly put on his dress uniform. As he moved around the room it wavered in his vision so hard he half expected it to disappear into blackness again. He supposed he was still very weak, probably delirious, but he did not feel it. He had been thinking as hard as he could while he lay prostrate in bed, and now all he felt was purpose. He knew what he had to do.

He ghosted through the building and out into the tropical night. He thought no-one had noticed him; was he _really_ here? he wondered vaguely. Looking up at the high moon it all seemed to run together: the first fascinated nights he had snuck out to watch Celliers in the hospital, and later in his prison cell; facing off with him in this very clearing; that dream of Celliers in the moonlight, the first he had remembered in its entirety; and finally the fever-walks his spirit had taken through the jungle while his body fell apart in its futon. It was all the same to him now.

The reaction of the sentries ahead confirmed that he was at least visible; they saluted and Yonoi returned it, waving them away with a terse movement. He had come to the fence that marked the edge of the sand; alone now, gazing across that miniature desert, Yonoi saw him.

Celliers’ hair was white in the darkness, his head the only visible thing in the flat expanse of sand. It looked very surreal, thought Yonoi, who was monitoring himself carefully to see if he would become hysterical. Apparently not: all he felt was relief; at laying eyes on him again. At knowing Celliers had not left him.

Carefully, as though approaching a sacred object, Yonoi began to walk towards him. Celliers’ head did not move, and Yonoi was almost sure he was dead. Yonoi slid his knife from his pocket. He walked up behind him and knelt down in the sand, which was still putting out warmth; from the long-vanished sun or from Celliers’ own remaining radiance. Yonoi wanted to speak to him, but the idea of not having him talk back was too painful to risk it. Instead the Captain set his hand reverently on Celliers’ head, the bleached hair soft beneath his fingers. At that he sensed that there might be a spark of life left in the Major still; he could almost hear his voice. But voices were Yonoi’s specialty these days, and it likely did not mean much. Besides, it hardly mattered now.

He took a deep breath, and ceremonially cut a lock of the fair hair he had admired so much that first day in the courtroom. Then he wrapped it and put it away. He paused there a moment, fighting a wave of vertigo; never had he felt so unreal as he did now.

He had to grit his teeth before he could stand up, but once he did his feet carried him round to face Celliers. He had to see him once more, to look into his face for the first time in what seemed an eternity. And there he was, his enemy, his downfall, his destiny. And he was alive: his hypnotic eyes were open, though Yonoi had no idea if he could see him. Perhaps Celliers was looking past him into some illusion of his own. He wished that, somehow, he could feel that captivating gaze upon him again.

_You’ve won_ , said Yonoi silently, feeling as much an apparition as Celliers had often appeared to him. He found himself quite content. _I salute you_. He raised one hand smartly to his temple and bent his head in a deep bow. When he raised his eyes he was sure that now Celliers was really dead; that beautiful body was just a body. Where had he passed to? Yonoi thought – and hoped – that he knew.

 

* * *

 

 

That was the last time he ever saw what was left of Celliers the man – of the British Army Major that Lawrence and Hicksley had known. Yonoi could not look at him again, not like that. He gave orders that Lawrence, who by some quirk of fate was still here, was to be deferred to in all matters regarding Major Celliers’ funeral arrangements. Yonoi would not be present, he told his subordinates, who looked relieved. He had what he needed.

Since waking up Yonoi no longer felt connected to the place that had been his world this past year and more. The lush landscape and humid warmth of Java seemed far more nebulous than anything he saw when he closed his eyes, and so he did not bother to engage with it. He carried out his duties, as the lieutenant had predicted he would, and beneath his stoic surface endured a constant melting-pot of grief and puzzlement and something that seemed brighter and more significant than either of them.

When he walked around the confines of the camp, half the time he did not recognise it; there was nobody here he knew. It was as if, with Celliers’ death, the life of the camp had been decimated; as if he had taken it with him. Just as he had taken Yonoi.

The only thing that had not changed was Lawrence.

Yonoi had been worrying himself for what felt like weeks over this; as his body recovered and became stronger he grew more distressed about it. It was now the only thing he cared about. He had to make _sure_ the final part of his plan was carried out correctly – his new plan, that was, born from the artistic and tangled sculpture Celliers had made of his heart. And he needed Lawrence. Eventually, he summoned him.

 

The Colonel was ushered into the room, his limp healing but still noticeable. Yonoi looked him in the eye for the first time since that day; but there was never any apprehension in meeting Lawrence’s gaze. No desire, no confusion, no twisted gasp of magic. Lawrence was safe, on top of being actually, genuinely _good_ ; and that was why he was the only person who could help.

“Are you recovered?” Yonoi enquired.

“Yes, Captain,” said Lawrence formally. “Are _you_?”

“I am sending a group of prisoners back to Japan,” Yonoi informed Lawrence, ignoring the question. Better to let that alone. “High-ranking officers are to be held there until the war is over. You too, Colonel.” Lawrence’s soft eyes flashed at that.

“May I ask why, Sir?” he said; he sounded furious. Yonoi noticed his injured legs shaking, and waved him to a bench. Lawrence sat down and continued. “You know as well as I do that I’m not important, in the grand scheme of things. Why are you still trying to get rid of me?” Yonoi didn’t answer, just took an envelope from his jacket, holding it carefully.

“On the way, I have given orders that you will stop in a certain village,” he said instead. Lawrence was staring at the envelope. “You will be escorted to my family home; and I want you to give them this.”

“What is it?” asked Lawrence, after a moment, as if he was not sure he wished to know. Yonoi paused as well; but this was too important.

“…It is his hair.”

Lawrence drew a sharp breath. “Major Celliers’?” Yonoi nodded shortly. “For God’s sake, _why_?” the other man demanded, in a tone of morbid fascination.

“You will instruct them that it is to be dedicated at my family shrine. Do you understand?”

Lawrence looked at him then with a compassion that Yonoi did not welcome or deserve. The Captain clenched his jaw and waited in silence, remembering without meaning to the sensation of Celliers’ hair beneath his fingers. He closed his eyes for a moment, and felt the memory of Celliers’ lips against his skin.

“All right,” he heard Lawrence say, after an eternity. “Yes.” Yonoi opened his eyes and passed him the envelope, overcoming his reluctance to let it out of his grip. Lawrence was holding it by its edges, as if it might explode.

“Thank you.” There was some more silence.

“Did you want to talk about Jack?” Lawrence asked carefully. Yonoi could sense the anger behind his words, but his large eyes only looked pitying.

“No,” he replied. The Englishman sighed. “There is nothing to say. I know what he was,” Yonoi told him. “I know what he _is_.” Lawrence’s head jerked up at that.

“…What do you think he is?” he probed.

“You know very well what I think.”

“You think he was a demon,” Lawrence said. “ _Still?_ ”

“Did you never wonder why I could not kill Major Celliers?” Yonoi answered, pronouncing the name with clipped precision so that there was no danger of his voice breaking on it. “When he tried to escape with you, and when he…” But he could not finish that sentence.

“I did wonder.” Lawrence paused, and when he spoke it was with caution. “I thought I knew.”

Yonoi flushed, and these days he was so pale it was impossible that Lawrence would not notice. The very fact that the other man was showing such sensitivity told him what Lawrence thought.

“It is because executing Major Celliers would not stop him.” Yonoi had believed that, by the end. And after what had happened it was the one thing he could still pray for. “He is not human.”

Lawrence laughed, an incredulous sound. “Then why do you want this…” He waved the envelope, “… _memento_ at your family shrine?”

“I do. That is enough.”

“You’re as crackers as he was.”

Yonoi folded his arms and ignored this. He knew Lawrence would do it. He was counting on it. Now he would always know where Celliers was. And when Yonoi returned to his home, in whatever form – he had never been optimistic about his future, and with the chaos now an inferno in his soul he was certain he would not be here long – he would be waiting for him. His beloved tormentor.

“There is no use in evading one’s fate,” he explained. “See what your spirit has done to me.”

“He was _not_ an evil spirit,” said Lawrence exhaustedly, switching to Japanese as if it disgusted him to speak of such superstition in English. “…It’s just, in the end, he couldn’t resist all the madness. Jack Celliers was a _man_ weighed down by his past.” He gave Yonoi a dull look. “And by the burden of your love.” Yonoi stiffened and opened his mouth, but Lawrence raised a pacifying hand. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Not anymore. By that day you were as much his demon as he was yours. By then he couldn’t help himself; he couldn’t leave you alone.”

Quite suddenly Yonoi wanted to cry, and for the first time since Celliers had left his human body behind he thought he might be able to. Now he felt doubly grateful to Lawrence.

“I don’t understand why you think this,” he muttered.

“I know you don’t,” Lawrence told him. “And neither did he. The both of you were just impossible to…” He shook his head in frustration. “Look, may I go, please, Captain? Even if my Japanese was perfect, I don’t think I could ever explain this to you.”

“Yes.” Yonoi ran a trembling hand over his head, pausing for a moment to cover his mouth; he could feel it twisting into an expression as mad as Celliers’ own, and almost, almost on the edge of sight, he could see his apparition smiling.

“…I’ll see you again, I expect,” Lawrence offered finally, in his good-hearted way. “Someday.”

“Yes,” said Yonoi quietly. But he never did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there you have it! That was incredibly fun to write. I should probably do some comedy next time, though :)  
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed (?) it.


End file.
